Monsieur d'En Brochette; being an historical account of some of the adventures of Huevos Pasada par Agua, marquis of Pollio Grille, count of Pate de Foie Gras, and much else besides

' This is his picture^ really and truly.'

MONSIEUR
D'EN BROCHETTE

BEING

An Historical Account of Some of the
Adventures of Huevos Pasada Par Agua,
Marquis of Pollio Grille, Count of Pate
de Foie Gras, and Much Else Besides.

BY

BERT LESTON TAYLOR
:=• •=&
ARTHUR HAMILTON FOLWELL

AND

JOHN KENDRICK BANGS
ILLUSTRATED BY FRANK A. NANKIVELL

NEW YORK

M C M V
KEPPLER & SCHWARZMANN

Copyright, 1905, by KEPPLER & SCHWARZMANN

(Eontrnta

I. In which Count Pat£ de Foie Gras of En
Brochette has a strange adventure with
an unknown lady ..... i
II. In which there is something doing . . 17

III. In which I get out of a well and into a

select chateau . . . . .31

IV. In which I make a startling discovery . 45
V. In which the hero acquires a title . . 56

VI. In which there are dukes and dukes . 67

VII. In which a great historical mystery is

solved ....... 83

VIII. In which the Chevalier de Brie connects

with what was coming to him . . 96
IX. In which there are live and dead ones . 108
X. In which the king takes a hand . .122
XI. La Beldam Sans Merci and La Belle Isa-

belle 135

XII. In which there are doings on the stair . 148
XIII. In which Monsieur d'en Brochette brings
to a close the first volume of his incom
parable memoirs ..... 163

XIII. In which appear two portraits plus a family

heirloom ...... 169

XIII. In' which our hero sees his finish . . 174

MONSIEUR D'EN BROCHETTE

CHAPTER I.

IN WHICH COUNT PATE DE FOIE GRAS OK EN

BROCHETTE HAS A STRANGE ADVENTURE

WITH AN UNKNOWN LADY.

AT twenty minutes past eleven
o'clock on the morning of the fifth
Monday of March, 1684, anybody
had accosted me as I sat in the
large window on the Rue de June
Fourteenth side of the Cafe D'CEuf, in the fifteenth
Arondissement of the Quartier Latin, Paris, France,
and offered me even so little as a sou for my
thoughts, I should, on my honor as a gentleman,
have closed the bargain then and there if per
chance the sale were for ready money, for to
confess the sorry truth, I, Huevos Pasada par
Agua, Count of Pate de Foie Gras and Marquis
Presumptive of the Estates of Pollio Grille in
Spain, just arrived after an eventful journey from
the paternal acres of En Brochette, had naught
within my purse, nor for that matter in the saddle
bags resting athwart the shoulders of my tried
and trusty steed Gambetta, now restlessly champ
ing his crupper buckle in full view of the merry

•^ /Monsieur fc'en JBrocbeite. ^

breakfasters who surrounded me on all sides,
with which to pay the reckoning of my host. I
had breakfasted well, as the small slip lying upon
the immaculate napery before me attested, call
ing as it did for an immediate payment of two
hundred and fifty-seven francs thirty centimes,
without taking into account the quartier which
Henri the affable valet de place, who had served
me well, expected to receive as the price of his
good will. It was an awkward moment, albeit
not unanticipated, for I had entered the place
with the full knowledge that save my wits I had
nothing with which to square the account.

I had hoped when the demands of my
appetite — I had eaten nothing since leaving the
castle ten days before — I had hoped, I say,
when the demands of my large appetite — for I
was, in very truth, upon the verge of starvation
from so long an abstinence — I had hoped, I
repeat, that by the time my hunger was ap
peased, by playing the swashbuckler I could
have myself summarily ejected from the cafe"
without being called upon to pay, but to my
consternation my boisterous behavior served only
to increase the consideration with which I had
already been received. Nothing that I could
say or do seemed to surprise the managers or the
menials of the eating place. I had declared the
wines not fit to drink. I had thrown the Royal

'/ had run the head-waiter through with my rapier.''1

•^ a Strange B&renture. ^

Worcester egg cup to the floor, declaring that
eggs should be eaten only from Sevres of the
resilience of cobwebs. I had run the head-waiter
through with my rapier and wiped the blade
upon the cloth of a neighboring table at which
three ladies sat, and had in every other wise done
my best to secure my forcible removal, but in vain.
Each roisterous ebullition but served to show me
in the eyes of those self-centered people to be
more and more surely a gentleman of quality.
It did not seem that by any human possibility I
could escape the gendarmerie, which would have
been fatal to my hopes and ambitions, for it was
only with the idea that I might some day be
come the Captain of the King's Police that I had
come to Paris, with a letter to rny father's old
friend Guillaume De Very, who held that exalted
office at the time of which I write. I)e Very
and my father, the Sieur de Foie Gras, had served
together in many a bloody campaign under
Charlemagne and Pepin the Little, but of late
years they had drifted apart, and though the old
friendship was strong and had been kept up by
correspondence, the two had not seen each other
since the Battle of Firenzi in the War of the
Tulips, when they had parted just before the final
charge which placed the laurels of victory upon
the banners of the Due de Maitre d'Hotel, Com-
mander-in-Chief of the forces of" Pepin. I cud-

•V /Ifconsteur D'en JSrocbettc. "V

gelled my brain for some ingenious way out of
my present scrape, but alas, the situation grew
more complex with each moment of reflection.
To gain time for further cogitation I called Henri
to my side by rapping upon the window-sill with
my dagger.

"Another platter of gateaux des pans" I cried.
"And have them better done^than the last, my
man, else will I slit thee into twins with this — "
tapping the hilt of my rapier.

As I spoke, a silvery laugh, unmistakably
the laugh of a beautiful blonde, but patrician
withal, as I could tell from its rippling cadences,
broke upon the stillness of the cafe from behind
me. Turning quickly, my eyes rested upon the
most beautiful woman I had ever seen — her
eyes had the liquid cerulean tint of a Mediter
ranean wave charged with the colors of heaven ;
beside her lips the ripest cherry seemed but an acid
bit of saffron ; her profile which was turned
toward me suggested the supervision of the sculp
tor of the Venus of Milo when the gods designed
her nose and brow and chin — for the rest, since
she sat at table I could but divine it, yet was I
confident that even were her figure that of some
charwoman, there had been lavished upon her face
enough of beauty to blind the most fastidious to
all other imperfections. But alas ! All this beauty
instead of thrilling my soul with happiness turned

^ B Strange BSvcnturc. ^

to gall every bit of sweetness in my heart, for I
perceived at once that her laughter had been
evoked by some slighting allusion to my horse,
Gambetta, and when from those lips there dropped
the words in Spanish, " I guess he 's faster tied
than loose," my rage knew no bounds, for Gam
betta and I have been friends these many years,
bound together by a comradeship beside which
the vaunted friendships of Peleas and Melisandre,
Castor and Pollux — aye of Ossa and Pelion
themselves — pale into coldness — mere partner
ships into which the affairs of the heart never
enter. My rage knew no bounds, I say, and
springing to my feet I again summoned the
waiter.

"Henri !" I cried, with that haughty arro
gance that I must confess becomes me well.

"Si, signer. Oui, Monsieur. Yah, Mein
Herr. Here, sir," he replied.

" My card, Henri — to yonder haughty
beauty — ask her name, or better the name
of her father, her brother, her lover, her fiance,
her attorney — any man of prowess to whom I
may throw down my glove demanding satisfac
tion for this insult," I cried haughtily. " I admit
Gambetta's faults, but he shall not become an
object of ridicule at any fair lady's hands, how
ever beautiful. His spavins have been earned in
valiant service to his master and his King. That

^ dfoongieur D'en JBrocbctte. -V

glander which you will observe behind his left
ear was won at the battle of Toulon. The pant
which affects his wind is but the badge of honor
able service in the campaign of Suabia, when no
less a personage than Henri of Navarre asked
'Whose horse is that?' The Dauphin himself
is more secure to-day for my beloved Gambetta's
existence, and I should be but a churl were I
to permit the smile of scorn to be pointed in his
direction. My card, Henri ! My card ! "

With this I drew myself up proudly and felt
for my card case.

// was gone. I had been robbed — but I
had taken my stand, and a Pate de Foie Gras is
not lightly to be swerved from his purpose, espe
cially in the presence of women. My eye lighted
upon the check lying upon the table, and the
solution of my difficulties was before me. Hastily
scribbling my full name and title on the back of
the slip I handed it to Henri.

" For the lady, Henri," I muttered. "And
wait for an answer."

Henri immediately took the check on his
silver tray and handed it to the beautiful unknown,
who with a gesture of scorn wrote her initials
upon it.

" Certainly," I heard her say. " Certainly,
Henri, if the gentleman wishes it. Have it
charged to my account."

^ a Strange BDventure. -^

" Sapristi !" I cried in my wrath at this
additional insult. " Shall I, Robert Gaston cle
Launay Alphonse, Count de Foie Gras, and heir
presumptive to the Marquisate of Huevos Pasada
par Agua and the Estates of Pollio Grille of
Spain, be thus affronted by a mere chit of a
woman, who first laughs at my horse and then
presumes to pay my score for breakfast ? Ja-
mais ! Never. Non-non. Oest impossible"

With this I turned my eyes full upon the
arrogant beauty and addressed her as follows :

" Madame, you are a woman — I am a man,
therefore to cross swords with you is impossible.
Nevertheless you have seen fit to flout my horse
— my poor but honest steed Gambetta, who for
forty years has served my father and myself, and
for twenty years before that did yeoman's service
at the plough of my grandfather, Gaston, Comte
de Ris de Veau, Due de Nesselrode, and Grand
Seigneur of the province of Petit Pois. Not con
tent with this, Madame,, you have treated con
temptuously me, the Count of Pate de Foie Gras,
who have measured foils with the proudest gen
tlemen of France, and have taken up the gaunt
let in many a tourney in which the hands of
fairer maids than thou were the prize of him who
by his valiant lance should prove himself worthy
of them. I am poor, but I am still a gentleman,
and such insults may not go unavenged. I there-

^ /Monsieur fc'en JSrocbette. if

fore ask you, Madame, for the name — the name
and address — of some one, some man to whom
I may go to seek redress. And have a care,
Madame, that your choice be not lightly made,
for I am an En Brochette whose sword is no
plaything ; but a blade so keen it pierces ere it
strikes."

The proud beauty drew herself up haughtily.

"You have addressed these words to me,
M'sieur ?" she said.

"To you, Madame. Despite thy beauty,
my rage knows no bounds, and if thy father, or
thy brother, or thy fiance, or thy attorney, be a
gentleman, he will not deny me satisfaction."

At this point I drew myself erect into an
attitude of hauteur which reminded me forcibly
of the portraits of my ancestor Cela Va Sans Dire,
the noble Touranian who fought so valiantly
under Philip of Spain, whence came our title to
the Huevos Pasada par Agua estates. A mur
mur of admiration burst instinctively from all
parts of the breakfast room, and I could see too
that the fair woman to whom my words were
addressed was stirred to the depths of her being,
for her cheeks mantled with the rich crimson of
her patrician blood, and the bursting of a button
from the wrist-band of her dainty glove showed
that her pulses were beating madly.

"It is true that I am a woman," she replied,

•^ a Strange a&venture. ^

dreamily. " Monsieur, I have scoffed at your
horse, and vised your breakfast bill, and I pre
sume I owe you satisfaction. I have no father
who is an adept at the foils. My brother is
bottled up at Tokio with Richard Coeur de
Davis and other Crusaders. I may not give you
the name of my fiance for I fear you would kill
him, which, it being the dearest wish of my heart
that some one should spit him well ere our wed
ding day on Tuesday next, would be the equiva
lent of murder. I can think of but one sword in
France, then, that is worthy to champion my
cause. The name of its wielder is there ! "

With that she rose from her table and,
throwing a card at my feet, swept majestically
from the room. As she disappeared through the
doorway I leaned over to pick up the fallen card,
for, by my faith, so beautiful she was I could not
take my eyes from off her sweet self before that.
One glance at the name sent me staggering to
the wall.

// was my own !

"Check, sir," said Henri, as I started for
the door.

"Can't you see, fool, it is initialed?" I
retorted, thrusting the fellow aside. " Charge it,
as you have already been commanded."

With these words I rushed to the curb and
leaped blindly for the saddle and Gambetta's

"V dbonsteur £>'en JBroctjette. -y

back, but the horse had been taken away and I
landed in much disorder in the middle of the
street.

CHAFFER II.
IN WHICH THERE is SOMETHING DOING.

IHE RKADER of these imperishable
memoirs will recall that Chapter
One left me lying on my back in the
streets of Paris, a fraction of a kilo
metre from the doors of the Cafe
D'Oeuf. For a moment, M'sieurs, I was stunned
by the fall, but youth crushed to earth shall rise
again, and presently I was on my feet taking
account of stock. Alas, the inventory was but a
light one. I, Robert Gaston de Launay, Count
of Pate de Foie Gras and Marquis Presumptive of
the Estates of Pollio Grille in Spain, was bereft
of my card case and my beloved horse Gam-
betta; yet did I still have my health and my
long sword and my family name that was longer
still. Priceless possessions, with which I might
conquer the world !

The loss of Gambetta (who, I afterward
ascertained, had been corralled by La Societe
Prevenir Cruciate d' Animals} was swiftly repaired.
A handsome red mare stood tethered before the
cafe. I scribbled my I. O. U. for the price of
the beast, which I estimated at thirty francs,

'7

•^ /ifconstcui fc'cn JBrocbctte. ^»

nailed the scrap of paper with my dagger to the
cafe door, flung myself into the stirrups and gal
loped away, my bridle hand resting lightly on
the pommel of my saddle.

Parblen ! you exclaim. Why this detail?
M'sieurs, I am particular to mention the dis
position of my bridle hand, for had it not rested
as I have described for you, the map of Europe
would not be colored as it is to-day, nor would I,
Robert Gaston de Launay Alphonse, etc., have
— But ma foi ! I am anticipating the last chap
ter. This, then, M'sieurs, is what befell : As I
clattered down the long hill beyond Lyonnaise,
ten leagues from Paris, my bridle hand in some
manner pressed a spring in the saddle's pommel,
and this, opening, disclosed a secret recess in
which reposed a letter and a handful of bank
notes. One glance at the inscription and all my
wild Brochette blood surged madly to my brain ;
for the name was none other than that of the
powerful Duke des Pommes de Terre au Gratin !

"Diable/" I murmured. "A conspiracy
against the King! Count Pate de Foie Gras,
your fortune is already made ! "

A thud of hoofs behind me caused me to
glance back, and I discerned a horseman dash
ing down the hill in a great cloud of dust.
Drawing rein I awaited his approach with my
customary sang froid, and presently found my-

18

^ Something Doing, ^r

self confronting a much agitated young man in
blue velvet.

"My horse!" he cried, leveling a passionate
finger at the red mare. "Rascal! My horse!"
" Not another franc," I returned firmly. For
answer he flung my I. (). II. in my face. "S"
death!" I roared, my temper giving away. "The
paper of a Foie (Iras has never before gone to
protest. Draw, shrimp !"

I leaped lightly to the ground, threw off my
cloak and hat and unfastened my pourpoint, the
young man in blue velvet following suit.

" M'sieur," I remarked, as I tested the edge
of my blade on my thumb-nail, " I fancy a more
secluded spot for this encounter, preferably one
sheltered from the cold north wind by a high
wall and screened from the vulgar observation of
the passers-by. However, I observe you are in
haste, and myself am in some hurry to be gone,
and so — have at you ! "

The blades kissed sibilantly, and — poof!
it was really nothing at all. Three passes and I
had him spitted, and he expired almost instantly.
Poor fool ! to measure his feeble steel against the
best swordsman in all France. I tossed the
body into the bushes and went on my way.

I had killed the messenger to the Duke des
Pommes de Terre au Gratin, and I, Count Pate
de Foie Gras, was become the messenger. My

^ /fconsieur fc'cn JBrocbette. ^

course was plain. I should deliver the letter to
the Duke, and thus become a part of the con
spiracy. All else was as heaven willed.

But what of the beautiful blonde unknown
who had vised my breakfast bill at the Cafe
D'Oeuf? In my haste to leave Paris I had for
the nonce forgotten her, and now the memory of
her exquisite face swept over me a tidal wave of
passion. A few hours ago I was penniless; now
I tapped the banknotes in my pocket — I was
ready money. Until I had repaid my divinity
her trifling loan of two hundred and fifty-seven
francs thirty centimes, not forgetting the qttartier
for Henri the affable ralct de place, I could
not, as a gentleman and a Brochette, declare
my passion, a passion that flamed and crackled
with every recollection of the details of her in
comparable loveliness. For you must know,
M'sieurs, that we of Brochette are as very tinder
to the smiles of a beautiful woman. For two
sous I would have abandoned the adventure
into which fate had thrown me and returned
to Paris ; but one thing decided me to go on —
I was enormously hungry, and the lights of
Croquante were even now shooting out of the
eastern dusk.

I flung into the Pousse Cafe, on the far
edge of the village, with so much arrogance that
the entire machinery of the place was instantly

^» Something 2>otng. ^

at my command. I was, as I have said, enor
mously hungry, and I had cached six capons,
a shoulder of mutton and ten bottles of wine
before 1 lifted my head from my work, attracted
by the bustle of a fresh arrival in the street
before the cafe. A coupe was drawn up at the
curb, and from it alighted — mon Dieit ! scarcely
could I credit my eyes — the haughty blonde of
the Cafe D'Oeuf ! She was followed by a man
of distinguished bearing and exceedingly sour
visage, who had a pretty trick of gnawing his
under lip with his gleaming white teeth. I rose
as the party entered the cafe, and with a sweep
ing bow, "Madame," I said, '-it was your treat
this morning. Permit me to set 'em back."

The lady drew herself up haughtily, then
suddenly yielded to a tinkling merriment, while
her companion rapped out an oath, scowling hor
ribly meanwhile.

"Venire c/iat noir !" said he. "Who is
your foolish friend ? "

Before the lady could reply I flung the
name full in his face :

"R-r-robert daston de Launay Alphonse,
Count Pate de Foie Gras, and Marquis —
Shall I continue, M'sieur?"

"No — Tcutre chat noir .' — no," he bel
lowed, fishing out his card case. "Ma foi,
M'sieur, your name is as long as your nose."

•^ /iftcmsieur fc'en JBrccbette. "V

As he spoke he handed me his card, and with
difficulty I repressed a start as I read :

" Gaspard Henri Pierre, Duke des Pommes
de Terre au Gratin. Tlnirsdays from 2 p. m. to
quarter past four.'''

"M'sieur is pleased to allude to my nose,"
I said, twisting the bit of pasteboard between
my fingers. "M'sieur will find my sword even
longer."

" Parbleu ! as you will," replied the Duke
indifferently, putting on his hat.

"Oh inercif" sighed the lady with a pretty
moue. "Cannot we dine first? I am frightfully
off a we'-"

"Business before pleasure, chere Isabelle,"
replied the Duke grumbling. "Come, M'sieur!"

As I bowed and prepared to follow, a light
hand on my arm detained me, and I looked into
the heavenly blue orbs of Isabelle.

"Beware the Duke, my brave Brochette,"
she whispered swiftly. "He is un craqueur-
jacque."

I pressed her hand and with a heart beat
ing in wild joy followed my adversary from the
cafe.

The secluded spot chosen for the meeting
was precisely to my fancy. A high wall shel
tered us from the cold north wind, and the
ground was firm and smooth. Every facility

^ Something JDoinc?, ^

for a first - class encounter was present. The
Duke's countenance expressed the utmost in
difference, whilst my own agitation proceeded
wholly from the thrilling handclasp of the beau
teous Isahelle.

"A la carte, I suppose," I remarked care
lessly. The Duke bowed, with a bored expres
sion, and the supple rapiers joined.

The Duke ventured a small order a la
carfe, but so swiftly did 1 fill it that he was
compelled to throw himself back to avoid the
lightning play of my point. The bored expres
sion vanished from his face, for at cnce he dis
cerned that he was up against it, as we of
Brochette have the saying. He next essayed
a thrust in tierce, and as I met this as promptly
I heard him mutter between his set teeth:
"Tierce, idle tierce ! "

As for myself 1 was never more at mine
ease. I was gay even, and hummed a ProveiiQal
ballad as I felt with my point for various parts
of my adversary's anatomy. Seeing that I was
his master at fence he played his last card, the
secret thrust of Girolamo of Naples. I laughed
as I parried it, for was it not I that had taught
Girolamo the stroke ? With an oath the Duke
leaped back and blew thrice upon a silver
whistle.

"Traitor!" I cried, but got no farther.

^ dfoongieur D'en JSrocbettc. -y*

There was a rush of feet behind me, a heavy
blow descended on my head, and the subse
quent proceedings interested me no more.

When I was again able to sit up and take
notice, I found myself in Cimmerian darkness,
the lower half of my body lying in water.
Dazed though I was, I was able to reflect
that had the position of my body been re
versed my condition would have been even less
satisfactory. I put out a hand and touched a
wall of stone, overgrown with moss.

"Ma foi !" I murmured, sizing up the un
pleasant situation, " >na foi f" they have thrown
me into a well ! "

CHAPTER III.

IN WHICH I GET OUT OF A WKI.L AND INTO A
SELECT CHATEAU.

\A FO1 7" 1 murmured again, as the
well-water drenched me to the
bone; "but had I here His Grace,
Gaspard Henri Pierre, Duke des
Pommes de Terre, right cheerfully
would I spit him thrice."

So hot for revenge, indeed, was I ; so das
tardly had been the trick which the Duke and
his minions had served me, that, verily, had it
not been for the well, then and there would I
have gotten up and gone in frothing search of
my assailant.

Still hot, I gathered my wits about me.
Where was 1 ? Down a well. What, then, to
do, I soliloquized. Should I yell and rouse some
slumbering lout ? A de Foie Gras yell ? Diable !
Absurd ! Then, of a sudden, it occurred to me,
and I laughed — the debonair, care-free laugh of
the Cafe D'CEuf. It being a well, someone in
good season would come to it and lower the
bucket. Le sublime et le beau ! Composing my
self, I dozed.

3'

^ ASonsieur yen JBrocbette. *&•

How long I slept, I know not. But it was
dawn of day when the bucket with a vicious
swoop descended and struck me fairly on the
head. With an oath, I awoke. 'T was a beard
less youth who had lowered it and thrusting his
face beyond the well curb's edge, he ejaculated :

" Say ! "

A strange way, M'sieurs, to address a de
Foie Gras, but I swallowed the affront and cried
in answer :

"What?"

"I bring a message for Robert Gaston de
Launay Alphonse, Count de Foie Gras. Is
M'sieur it ? "

The dialect of the youth was strange and
new to me and yet mine own name and title right
readily did I recognize.

"Pull up, boy," I commanded, my being
thrilled with wonder at what the message might
be. "Haul up on yonder diablish rope and haul
carefully or, body of Saint Louis, your skull shall
pay for it."

"Z,e message est collect, M'sieur," grinned the
youth above me. " Put three francs fifty cen
times in the bucket first or I '11 throw the mes
sage down. Voyez ! "

Sapristi ! For half a sou I would have
cracked his surly crown ; but what was I to do,
being in the well? Cursing roundly, I threw a

32

i I saw with a thrill a perfumed note."

*y* ©ut cf a Well ^

bedraggled bank note in the bucket and watched
him pull it up.

" M'sieur le Count is nn marque facile" he
gleefully chirped, on seizing the note. "And
now, M'sieur, for the rescue."

Down came the bucket again, and this time
the rascal wound lustily at the rope till I neared
the curb. Then, fearing my avenging hand, as
— Ma foi ! — he had cause to — he darted off
hot foot, leaving his chapeau behind him on
the dewy grass.

I looked at it and read across the band :
''Croquante District Telegraphe 79," but I gave
it but an instant's attention, for close to the well-
curb, stuck upright in the soft, moist earth, was
as brave a rapier as gallant would wish to handle,
and tied to its diamond-studded hilt, I saw with
a thrill a perfumed note.

"From Isabelle !" rapturously I cried, seiz
ing the note and kissing it a thousand times.
What cared I for the night in the well? What,
for the varlet of a boy ? What, for my dripping
raiment? Naught, thrice naught ! Isabelle, the
beauteous, the adorable, the incomparable, had
given me her love.

I opened the note and hurriedly scanned it.
Parblcit .' It was unsigned and unfinished, but
there was no mistaking the hand, the delicately
feminine hand.

35

T? dfconsieur fc'en JBvocbettc. -y

"From Isabelle!" I cried again, and with
beating heart read as follows :

"Mv BRAVK BROCHETTE: —

I followed you from the Inn last night and saw and heard
all. I saw the Duke's hirelings throw you, swooning,
into the well. I saw them contemptuously snap your
sword — the best blade in the whole of France — and
my blood boiled —

"Ah, chcre Isabelle," I cried, "Sweetheart!
Even as mine did in the darksome well."
Then I read on :

"Be not so credulous, my own, as to think that the Duke
believes you dead. The well, he knew, would revive,
not kill you. But beware, for now your life is indeed
in peril. The body in the bushes has been found.
The horse on which you rode to Croquante has been
recognized and seized —

"Fool that I was," I hissed, "to have re
placed the Duke's letter in the saddle's pommel."
The letter went on :

"And you are a marked man. I send you secretly In-
trusty messenger a rapier; — ;t is the Duke's. Use
it, my brave Brochette, but be prudent. Be wary
and, Oh, be watchful for my sake. While, if worse
comes to worst, as perchance it may right speedily, *
repeat boldly, no matter to whom, the words ; Deux
cafes cognacs, garden. 'T is the secret — . "

There ended the note abruptly. Again I
pressed it to my lips and then consigned it to
my wallet. Dear as it was to me, there were
other things to think of now. Watchfully — for
\vho could tell at what moment I would be set

37

V ©tit of a Udell, -y

upon ? — I made my way back toward the Inn,
rapier in hand.

"Deux cafes cognacs, garfott" I memorized
softly; "Deux cafes cognacs, garfon."

It was barely sunrise, a silent time and
sweet; a time most fitting for deep reflections,
and mine — Ma foi ! — were deep enough.

So the young fool's body had been found.
Well, even so, what of it? Bodies had been
found before, and in bushes. My horse, Gam-
betta's successor, had been recognized and seized.
Again, what of it? They would press the pom
mel; the letter to the Duke would be found.
Aye, what then ? Seeking the well, they would
find in it only water, and then —

"Ah, chere Isabelle ! Sweetheart !" I
thought, bending my rapier reflectively, "thy
words of caution were timely, truly, and I thank
thee from my soul."

Being steedless again, my first thought was
to secure a horse. Bien ! Nothing easier. There
were several of them in the Inn yard and it was
the work of a moment only to knock the stable
boy on the head and untether the best horse
there.

My next duty, naturally, was to get out of
the town, and this I did at a canter. Only
when out on the highroad, a good mile from
Croquante, did I pause and look back. The

•y /fccnstcut D'en JSrocbettc. -y-

sun was gilding the spires and chimney pots ;
the birds were twittering in the poplars by the
roadside ; not a soul was in sight 'twixt the town
and myself. Once more turning straight in the
saddle, and with not a little satisfaction, I was
amazed beyond measure to see a stranger, silent
and motionless, waiting my pleasure beside the
horse's head. Imagine the start it gave me when
I recognized in him an outrider of the coupe in
which Isabelle and the Duke des Pommes de
Terre had tooled the day before to the Inn.

" Well, sirrah ! " I demanded.

" I would deliver a message to M'sieur le
Count," he replied.

l*Ma foi .'" I cried, blithely; "it is a day
of messages. It is my second, in sooth, since
sun-up. Speak freely, sirrah."

" Mademoiselle would see and hold con
verse with thee, M'sieur le Count," the man con
tinued. "It is most urgent. There is no time
to be lost. She is at the Chateau Demi Tasse
at Poisson, a scant three miles from Bane
d'Huitres on the road to Paris."

I looked the man steadily in the eye ere I
spoke.

"You are not deceiving me, sirrah?" finally
I said. "If you are — "

"No, M'sieur le Count, no," he replied
earnestly.

V ©ut of a Well. V

"So be it!" I cried, my mind made up.
" I will seek Mademoiselle at the Chateau Demi
Tasse, but if she be not there, verily, at our next
meeting, I shall draw and quarter thee ! "

"M'sieur le Count has spoken," the man
said, gravely; and touching spurs to my horse,
I left him standing in the high road.

Scenting treachery, but willing to go through
Hades itself for a glimpse of her who was more
precious than life, I took the Paris road, headed
for Poisson and the Chateau Demi Tasse. Un-
accosted on the way, I reached the village at
noon-day and straightway located the chateau on
the Rue de la Upper Main.

The place had a sinister aspect, dark, dank
and forbidding. Around the corner of the house,
as I entered the drive-way and tied my horse,
came a tradesman's boy with a box on his shoul
der and whistling cheerily a popular Deux Temps.

"Who resides here, boy?" I inquired.

"Lots," he replied. "'T is Madame Filet's
Select Boarding Chateau."

With renewed presentiment of evil, I rapped
on the front door and was shown by a servant
into a room adjoining the main hall.

"M'sieur wishes to engage lodgings?" she
interrogated. " I will go and call Madame Filet."

Before I could detain her she left the room,
and the next instant there arose from the apart-

•^» Monsieur fc'en ffirocbette. ^

ment across the hall a shriek that I shall hear to
my dying day. It was the voice of Isabelle,
and —

"They are choking me!" she cried.

Rapier in hand, I dashed madly to the
room whence the screams had come, and burst
ing open the door, I beheld not Isabelle, but the
Duke des Pommes de Terre. - My sword was
knocked from my hand by some one behind me ;
the door was slammed and bolted, and I was
alone with an ugly, glowering foe.

" Diable ! The Duke!" I exclaimed.

" Aye ! Diable ! The Duke ! " he repeated
harshly after me. "We meet again, you see,
M'sieur le Popinjay."

My blood boiled again at the insult, but
what could I do? I was bladeless. I had only
my health and my family name. Then, of a
sudden, I recalled the mysterious words of Isa
belle.

"Deux cafes cognacs, gar(on ! Deux cafes
cognacs" I cried.

Mon Dien ! Shall I ever forget, M'sieurs,
the change that came over the Duke !

CHAPTER IV.

IN WHICH I MAKE A STARTLING DISCOVERY.

IHE RICH mahogany hue of that dissi
pated face turned an ashen gray
as I gave voice to the phrase and
the Duke, staggering backward in
a sudden surge of dismay, dropped
sword upon the tesselated floor. To leap madly
forward and seize it by the hilt was but the work
of a moment; and again, as I found myself
armed once more, I hissed in the man's gaping
countenance the cry :

" Deux cafes cognacs, garc_on !"
"Man Dieu/" he muttered, a white froth
upon his lips, and his eyes rolling madly, as he
started aback. "The word !"

And then it all came over me like a flash.
The man's secret in that involuntary movement
backward was revealed, and the manifest wince
that crept over his being as the word garfon fell
from my lips showed him in his true colors.

The person who stood before me was not
the true Duke des Pommes de Terre, but some
base born churl masquerading in borrowed —
nay, better put it stolen — plumes. I eyed him
narrowly as he mopped his brow with his hand-

•V Monsieur D'en JBrocbettc. -^

kerchief, which in very truth bore the ducal crest,
although he handled it like a serviette.

" You heard ? " I cried. "Deux cafes cognacs,
garden .'"

" Oui, M'sieur," he answered, cringing low
and washing his hands in savon invisible. "In
stantly, M'sieur," he added, placing the handker
chief over his wrist as though it were a napkin
and he merely the serving man of a Boulevard
salle a manger.

" Pah ! " I ejaculated as my scorn swept
over me ; and then for the first time came relief
to the over-tense situation for, ludicrously enough,
even as I blew the scornful exclamation from my
lips, this spurious Duke sat plump upon the floor
in the manner of an object that had been blown
over by some sudden, paralyzing gust of wind.
"Marionette!" I added. "Th-huh!"

" Non, Monsieur; non. Jules Fagot, Mon
sieur," he chattered. " Plain Jules Fagot at your
service, Monsieur."

" Ah — Jules Fagot, eh ? Of where — Fon-
tainbleu, or what other famous wood-pile ? " I
demanded.

" Le Cafe de la Paix, M'sieur, of Paris,"
was his quivering response.

"Head-waiter or chef?" I persisted, re
solved to press my questions home until the
man's very soul lay naked before me.

^ B Startling Discovery. ^

"Non, Monsieur; valet de cuisine, M'sieur,
settlement valet de cuisine" he mumbled.

"And his Grace the true Duke des Pommes
de Terre? What has become of him?" I cried.

A greater fear racked the form of the cring
ing coward before me, and he made as though
lie could not speak. The point of the rapier
restored him to utterance, however, for I made no
hesitation of puncturing his silken hosiery with
it until the sawdust fairly spouted from the
wound.

" He is a prisoner," replied Fagot, under
the pressure of pain, "in the wine cellar at the
Cafe de la Paix. He would not enter into the
conspiracy and it was necessary that he should,
else all of us would be hanged before sundown.
They seized upon me, the living image of the
Duke save as to the mole upon the chin, to assume
his personality, at least until the hour was ripe
for placing him upon the throne of his uncle."

"And had he not consented then?" I cried.

"Then I was to reign in his stead," Fagot
replied.

" A most foul conspiracy ! " I muttered.
"To place a base born churl upon the throne of
Charlemagne. Ventre Saltpetre, but it is incred
ible. I do not know whether to believe this
varlet's tale or not. Jules Fagot, it is true that
you greatly resemble the Duke, but, aha ! mayhap

^ Monsieur yen 38rocbette. -V

indeed thou art lie and lying to me, still" — 1
added, bending over him threateningly, for as I
spoke I perceived the mole upon the chattering
coward's chin. "Thou hast the birth-mark-!"

" Oui, M'sieur," he replied, his pallor deepen
ing as one having been caught with stolen goods,
"but it is spurious." And with this he flicked
the mole from off his chin with his thumb-nail
and handed it to me. My first impulse was to
toss the thing out of the window in sheer disgust,
but second thought made me keep it, since there
was no telling how far such material evidence of
their dastardly plottings would go to bring mel
low fruit to the spreading branches of the gal
lows-tree. So, having no other where to put it I
affixed it firmly to my own chin, little recking
what tremendous influence this simplest of acts
was to have upon the history of France and my
self during the next forty-eight hours.

"A damnable conspiracy this of yours, my
Fagot," said I.

" France has been ruled by its cavaliers long
enough," he growled. "It is time the makers of
the true France came into their own."

"The Makers of true France, varlet?" I
cried. " Sapristi tie Santa Maria — and who may
they be ?"

"The Chefs, M'sieur," he replied. "The
Chefs of Marseilles, of Toulon, aye, and of la

fO

-^ B Startling JDtecomg. ^

Belle Paris. It is we who have won glorious
renown for our beautiful country, yet where is
our recognition. Our generals who in time of
war have won great victories have risen to places
of honor and power. Field Marshall Vicomte de
Tureen has been ennobled for a single moment's
brave display of reckless courage on the plains
of old Compiegne. M. le Baron Bar-le-Duc for
his tragedy at Fontenoy was taken into the Coun
cil of the King and dowered with vast posses
sions. M. le General de Roquefort has received
the richest rewards the country lavishes upon the
fortunate ones of war; but we, sir, we the Chefs
who in times of peace and war have shed lustre
upon the tables of our King — we still go un
rewarded. T is well to lift on high the arms of
France, but he contributes most to a nation's
lasting greatness who keeps its stomach fair and
fed, its palate sated, and its dreams of glory safe
and sane and sweet."

Faith, but the fellow's words went deep into
my soul and stirred it well, and had he been less
cringing and kept his hands apart instead of giv
ing them that low born wring and twist that
marks the menial as a servitor for aye, right
gladly would I have offered him the softened
glance of sympathy. But there he was intrin
sically the valet of the kitchen, and I, of course,
a Huevos Pasada par Agua, to say nothing of

^ /Bbonsieur fc'en JSrocbettc. ^*

my claim to the blood of a d'en Brochette, could
not well descend unto the level of such canaille.
Moreover, it infuriated me 'beyond the power of
epithet to think that such a one had crossed
swords with me — the wielder of one of the
proudest blades of France.

"Go on, fellow," I commanded, suppressing
the momentary impulses of sympathy.

"We have united and form a party
2,000,000 strong of active workers, each one
of whom can count upon a hundred sympathiz
ing friends — or 2,000,000 subjects — "

" Ventre Saint Ambergris ! " I cried, pacing
the floor in agitation at the stupendous revelation
I had stumbled upon. "A hundred times the
population of our land."

"In truth, yes," he replied, quietly. "And
that, Milord, without a vestige of a surface agi
tation. You may well pause in the face of such
figures, for if they mount so high in secret effort,
to what will they amount when a public propa
ganda brings the rest flocking to our standards!"

What my answer would have been I hardly
know, for we were interrupted by three soft
knocks upon the door. Fagot, his cringing in
stantly faded into resolution, sprang to his feet
and reached for the knob.

"If you call for help you are a dead man ! "
I whispered, blocking his path and holding my

^ B Startling Discovery. ^

sword point directly at his throat. "Send them
away."

"Who 's there !" he called, hoarsely.

"It is I, Monsieur le Duke — Le Chevalier
de Brie, Captain of the Camembert Carabiniers."

My heart fluttered with excitement, for the
name of that bravo was already a terror to half
of France.

"Tell him you are engaged or you die !" I
whispered, emphasizing my command by prick
ing the varlet's Adam's apple, with the tip end
of his own sword. "Quick!" I added, as he-
hesitated.

"Later, Chevalier, later," the spurious Duke
called aloud. " I am on the point — ouch ! — 1
am on the point of settling a delicate matter,
mon Capitainc. I will give thee audience latef."

Ma foi, but I was relieved to hear the clank
ing spurs of the receding footsteps without. Not,
let me tell you, that in single combat I feared de
Brie, nor that L held unwelcome the prospect of
crossing blades with hirn some day. In sooth, the
contrary was more to my real taste, for had I not
made a vow to a fair lady of Castile — the lovely
Catherine de Savon, my cousin — that for her
wedding gift, the curled chin whisker of de Brie
woven into a chatelaine, would go to her once the
nuptial hour was set? But at the moment, I had
other things to think on. The rascal, Fagot, and

5.?

+jf Monsieur D'en JBrocbette. -V

his base conspiracy were fitter things for Huevos
Pasada par Agua at the pressing hour, and so I
say, I was much relieved to hear the clanking
spurs of the receding footsteps without.

" Now, you miserable atom of the prole
tariat," I observed, turning to the cringing Fagot,
"continue with your tale of infamy. In what
way is the fair Isabelle mixed up in this in
trigue ? "

" My fiancee," he answered, his sickly, green
face lighting up with passion, his head madden
ingly chirked as though he were, indeed, a devil
among the ladies.

"Yours?" I cried, my wrath surpassing
bounds.

"Well — his — the real Duke des Pommes
de Terre, but mine by right of succession," he
answered, setting his arms akimbo and twirling
his moustachios in a surge of conceit.

To grab him by the throat and toss him
violently across the room into a corner as if he
were so much mere bagging was the work of an
instant and, Venire Saint Petersburg, his last hour
were indeed come, had not a piercing shriek from
behind the wainscot distracted my attention.

"To me — Huevos — to me !" came a de
spairing woman's voice. "Man Dieu — to me
or I die."-

It was again the voice of Isabelle.

54

•y- S Startling SMscoverg. ^

I leaped to the wainscot and madly felt
along its panelled sides for some possible hidden
spring that should open a secret door leading to
the distressed lady's quarters. Inch by inch, I
covered the whole side of that accurst wall with
thumb and ringer, until — click ! The center
panel slid to one side, and a black corridor with
out disclosed itself. Plunging through the open
ing, I started to run. Fagot, as I did so, rose
hastily and slid back the panel, leaving me with
out and in utter darkness.

"A moi, Huevos, a tnoif" came Isabelle's
voice from the fore, and I began to run towards
it. A mocking laugh from behind the panel
grated harshly upon my ears.

"Run, you squirrel, run !" called Fagot.
"The maid to the fore; the oubliette behind !
Ha-ha— Ha-ha!"

And then, as I sped along, I realized the
horrid truth.

The floor of that cursed corridor was naught
else than an easy running treadmill, and run till
I lost my wind, scamper as I might, I could not
get a single step forward, and what was more
devilish still, I could not stop for rest.

For behind me lay the oubliette.

Squirrel indeed ! That was I. A winded
one at that.

CHAPTER V.
IN WHICH THE HERO ACQUIRES A TITLE.

JONSIDER, M'SIEURS, the emotions of a
man, however stout of heart, con
demned to run forever in a Stygian
blackness, with the appalling alter
native of pitching backward into
the slimy maw of an oubliette !

Was ever woman in this humor wooed ?
Was ever Pate de Foie Gras in this manner
served ?

As with desperate feet I whirled the accurst
treadmill, my hands pressed flat against the cor
ridor end, I hastily reviewed the later phases
of the adventure into which fate and a sus
ceptible heart had hurled me. The Duke des
Pommes de Terre au Gratin was a prisoner in
the cobwebbed cellars of the Cafe de la Paix
in Paris, and his beautiful fiancee, Isabelle, was
in the power of the pseudo Duke, the base-born
Jules Fagot. For Fagot and his wretched con
spiracy I cared not a sou, but my blood seethed
as I reflected that Isabelle was ignorant of
Fagot's real character. Unhappy girl, she had,
like so many of her sex, been betrothed without
havin seen the fare of her fiance. The reflec-

^ tlbc t)ero Bcquires a Citle. ^

lion was at once a pleasure and a pain. She
had not seen the real Duke; why, then, should
she love him? And in a battle lor a woman's
heart, all a Brochette has ever asked is a fair
field and no favor. All this, M'sieurs, by the
way of running comment.

1 had run, I judged, some three hours ere
my strength, enormous as it has always been,
fled from me utterly. A shuddering dread of
the oubliette had upborne me, but even that
vanished at last against my deadly exhaustion.
I tottered, like some mouldering old castle riven
by a lightning bolt. I sank upon one knee,
my brain reeling. I breathed the name of Isa-
belle, and fell forward upon my face. The
oubliette had claimed its victim !

Strange, I reflected a few moments later,
I have had no sensation of falling into a pit.
Man Dieu ! A maddening suspicion coursed
like quicksilver through my whirling brain. I
struggled to my feet, struck a match, and by the
flaring of its small light I saw that my suspicion
was very truth. There was no treadmill ! There
was no oubliette ! 1 had been victim of a fiend
ish suggestion assisted by my own heated fancy.
For three hours I had turned an imaginary
treadmill at the blind end of a dark corridor,
and all the while stood a door at my elbow,
ready to be passed.

57

^ Monsieur O'en JBrocbette. •&

In a towering rage I dashed open the door
and found myself in an unoccupied chamber
giving on the street. A lace handkerchief lay
crumpled on the floor. I picked it up, and a
wave of passion swept over me. I recognized
the perfume. It was Isabelle's. I flung out of
the chamber and clattered down the stairs. Too
late ! Too late ! The vulture and the dove had
flown !

For a space of five minutes or more the
denizens of the Chateau Demi Tasse had oppor
tunity to judge the quality of a Brochette balked
of his prey. The original bull in the china shop
was not more destructive, nor had he half so ter
rible a bellow.

" Sacre nom de chat noir !" I raged, hurling
a water bottle through the best window; and
"Venire de inoJon !" crushing with a chair a
thousand francs of Sevres china and cut glass.
The servants cowered in affright, the lady cashier
fled, Mme. Filet ran for the gendarmerie. I
strode to the stables. The garfon d'ecurie took
to his heels, and undisturbed I saddled the best
horse in sight. As I jingled into the street
Mme. Filet returned with a score of gendarmes,
but I rode the canaille down and set my face
toward Paris.

I had galloped a league or more before
my wild Brochette blood resumed its normal

'/rode the canaille down."

59

Hcquires a tlitle.

flow. Then suddenly I made a discovery that
banished for the nonce all memory of my late
disaster. The saddle I sat in was the saddle
of the dead messenger to the Duke des Pommes
de Terre ! With trembling fingers I pressed the
pommel. The letter lay again before my eyes —
intact, the seal unbroken.

"A ISrochette ! A Brochette !" I cried ex-
ultingly. The road to fortune was again open.

But first I must have fresh apparel and a
rapier. These I should purchase at Manchet,
toward which I spurred my horse. I thrust the
precious letter in my pocket and stroked my chin
reflectively. As I did so my fingers encountered
the property mole which, a few hours before,
I had flicked from the chin of the impudent
impostor, Jules Fagot, and thoughtlessly affixed
to my own countenance.

"So," I mused, tapping the mole, "with
this pitiful bit of make-up the wretched Fagot
hoped to cozen the world. Ass ! Why, one
would say that I, Count Pate de Foie Gras,
was become the Duke. And, I/HI foi! with
more of reason, for my blood is as good as his,
and were I suitably apparelled " — I glanced at
my disordered raiment — "I should look the
Duke in very sooth."

Humoring thus my whimsey I rode into
Manchet and sought a department store, where

61

^ dfconsteur D'en JBrocbette. ^

I purchased a princely suit of clothes of im
peccable cut and quality, and a rapier of best
Toledo.

" C'est le Due," I overheard a demoiselle de
boutique remark to her neighbor, and the whisper
ran from counter to counter : " C'est le Due.
C'est le Due"

I felt my chin. The mole was still there.
In a flash the cringing servility of the proprietor
was explained. Bent double, he accompanied
me to my horse. " Your Excellency is well ? "
he said obsequiously. "Shall I not send your
Excellency's purchases to the chateau?"

"A word in your ear, canaille" I answered,
scowling at him. "I am not what I seem
to be."

"Instantly I perceived that by your Excel
lency's disguise," he answered, with a glance
at my travel-stained and adventure-rent ward
robe. "Your Excellency may command my dis
cretion."

"Very good," said I. "Now tell me, has
aught occurred at the chateau ? "

" Nothing, Excellency. The chateau is de
serted, save for the servants."

I mounted and tied my purchases to the
saddle horn. "One final question, canaille:
where is the chateau?"

The man stared open-mouthed. Then a

acquires a title.

smile cleft his countenance. "Your Excellency
is pleased to jest," he said.

"Answer me!" I thundered. Startled, he
pointed up the road.

" Half a league, Excellency."

" Now — silence ! " I said, piercing him
with a glance.

"Your Excellency may command my dis
cretion," he mumbled, as I pricked up my horse
and galloped away.

So ; my resemblance to the Duke was
more than casual. You will scarcely credit it,
M'sieurs, but I had forgotten my own features.
I was no self-worshipping Narcissus. 'T was
years since I had looked into other mirror
than that of woman's eyes. Impelled by curi
osity I sprang from my horse and gazed into the
glassy depths of a wayside pool. I saw — a
man of five and twenty, remarkably handsome
and distingue, with a very white skin and in
tensely black hair and eyes. "Ma foil" I mur
mured, " I did not know I was so well favored."

Parbleu ! An inspiration! I led my horse
into a thicket and attired myself in my new rai
ment. "Farewell, Count Pate de Foie Gras!"
I cried, as I tossed away my shabby garments.
" Henceforth you are the Duke des Pommes de
Terre ! "

Thus bravely accoutred and feeling every

*y~ Aonslcut ft'en 36rocbcttc. ^*-

inch a Duke, I rode boldly into the chateau
courtyard, dismounted, and flung the reins to a
waiting man-at-arms.

The chateau wore a deserted look, but it
had a grand and lordly air, and appeared in excel
lent repair. A minion in livery, whom I took to
be the Duke's valet, preceded me up a magnifi
cent staircase and into a suite of rooms furnished
with the utmost luxury and elegance. The
second of these was a large and admirably pro
portioned apartment ; a log fire roared up the
enormous chimney, and in a curtained alcove I
observed a sumptuous and luxurious bed. Over
the high, richly ornamented chimney-piece hung
a portrait of a gentleman. The face seemed
strangely familiar to me, yet I could not remem
ber where I had seen it before. Suddenly, "Ma
foil" I burst out, smiting my hip, " // is myself! "
That is to say, M'sieurs, it was the Duke des
Pommes de Terre, but the resemblance was per
fect. There was but one flaw : I had affixed the
mole to the wrong side of my chin. This error
I had no sooner corrected than my ear was
assailed by a bustle in the courtyard. I stepped
to the balcony, and —

Sapristi ! Whom should I behold but the
arch-plotter Jules Fagot, the beauteous Isabelle,
and that most truculent of bravos, the Chevalier
de Brie, Captain of the Camembert Carabiniers !

64

" ' T U'as the face of Fagot that riveted mv attention

6s

^ £be Ibcio Scqimcs a Citle. ^

Upon the bravo I bestowed but a glance ; upon
the glorious face of Isabella my gaze rested but
for an instant. T was the face of Fagot that
riveted my attention. Ma foi ! would you be
lieve it, M'sieurs? — myself had not noted it
before — the fellou' looked as like me as two cen
times ! Upon his chin he had glued another
mole, to replace the one I had taken from him !

Instantly my quick mind took in the situ
ation with one sweeping cerebration. It was to
be a battle of wits between the rival Dukes.
"Ha!" I muttered exultingly, as my eagle eye
pounced upon the chin of my antagonist, " I have
the fellow on the hip ! Fool ! He has over
reached himself ! "

FAGOT HAD MISPLACED THE MOLE !

CHAPTER VI.

IN WHICH THERE ARE DUKES AND DUKES.

|IFE ! LIFE ! Ah, what is life, M'sieurs,
beyond the sunny borders of be
loved France ? Where else does the
blood so swiftly course ? Where
else has the day, from sun to sun,
such a pageant of events ? Where else — but
Mon Dieu ! Why wander thus ? The facts for
themselves shall ably testify.

Marvel, M'sieurs; 't was scant two days
since, seated souless in the large bow window on
the Rue de June Fourteenth side of the Cafe
D'Oeuf, I had first held converse with Isabelle,
the incomparable, yet within that brief time, I
had journeyed from Paris to Croquante, from
Croquante to Poisson and the house of Demi
Tasse and from Poisson to Manchet, where with
Mole secure and eye commanding, I was now
impersonating the Duke des Pommes de Terre
in the Duke's own chateau and expecting
momentarily the coming of Fagot, the despic
able ! Ah, France ! France ! Where else but
in thy fragrant realm ? Where else but 'neath
thy glowing skies?

I meditate now, M'sieurs, and I dream be-

•y Dufcee anfr 2>ufces. -^r

sides. But when I stepped back from the bal
cony after seeing Isabelle, Fagot and the Che
valier de Brie in the castle yard below, believe
me, I neither dreamed nor meditated. The first
thrill of triumphant exultation, which I felt on
perceiving from the window that the base-born
Fagot had misplaced the mole, gave way instanter
to a sober reflection that the game was not yet
won ; nor, indeed, fairly begun, though speedily
enough did I begin it.

A duller pate than mine, M'sieurs, — for
dullness was ne'er a trait of any d'en Brochette
— would easily have noted with whom the ad
vantage lay. The churl Fagot was ignorant of
my presence in the Duke's chateau and still more
ignorant of the pleasing truth that for the time
being, at least, the Duke was I, and I the Duke.

"Ma foil" I muttered grimly, giving to my
mole a final pat, " I shall not, methinks, be tardy
in acquainting him."

Striding past the fire and the portrait of His
Grace — here I laughed, as who could help? A
warm blaze in the massive fire place; a sump
tuous repast, I doubted not, whenever I chose to
order it; servants galore at my beck and call, all
these, in sooth, for Brochette, while the Duke —
Mon Dieu — the Duke lay shivering and cursing
in the dismal wine vaults of the Cafe de la Paix.
M'sieurs, I shrugged my shoulders and strode on.
69

•^f /foonsteur &'en JBrocbctte. ^

It was the way of the world, M'sieurs; of the
world and France.

Reaching the door, I called lustily for a
menial. Promptly, one responded, low bowing.

" Get you to the yard, fellow," I com
manded, "and you will find there three travelers,
newly arrived; a lady and two male companions"
— the word gentlemen, M'sieurs, stuck in my
throat — "Approach the stouter of the men —
are you attending strictly, sirrah?"

" Oui, Your Grace."

"Approach the stouter of the men and re
peat to him these words, no more, no less : 'Deux
cafes cognacs, Carbon. Deux cafe's cognacs? Now,
be off."

For a second, the man stared wildly and
hesitated.

"Go!" I repeated. "Do you understand?"

With quaking knees and shaking head, the
fellow started down the mighty stair case.

"Sapristi!" I laughed, as I watched him
turn the landing, "friend Fagot's face will be well
worth scanning, I trow, if yonder menial proves
not a dolt."

Still inwardly laughing, I listened, for the
spirit of the jest was bubbling within me, and
eagerly did I await the developments which I
knew must soon come. 'T would be d'en Brochette
who first would score in the tournament of wits.
70

•y- Dukes anfc Dufces. ^

Anxious to see as well as to hear, I de
scended softly to the landing below. Cautiously,
but with a lively sense of anticipation, I directed
my gaze upon the entrance hall. The trio were
within the chateau. How Fagot, masquerading
as the Duke, had passed unchallenged by the
warder and the men-at-arms was at first a mys
tery profound to me. Then I recalled that the
guard at the gate had been changed at sun-down
and the thing in a twinkling was clear. The
men who saluted Jules Fagot, bogus Duke cles
Pommes de Terre, were not the same set that an
hour before had presented halberds on the com
ing of d'en Brochette — likewise bogus, but —
Saints witness it — in a worthy cause. There
were two Dukes in that house, M'sieurs, and I
alone as yet was aware of it.

" Delicious ! " exultantly I cried. " And now
for Fagot's welcome. It shall be a royal one,
believe me, M'sieur -valet de cuisine."

Carefully, I peered beyond the stair rail.
The shadows of nightfall were gathering apace
and there was scant danger that I should be seen
till I chose deliberately to disclose myself. Fagot
— cringing scullion, how my hands ached to
throttle him ! — Fagot at that moment was divest
ing Isabelle of her cloak, and their forms were
sharply silhouetted in the glow of the great hall
fire. The Chevalier de Brie, Captain of the

71

"V /fooneleur JXen ^Brocbette. -^

Camembert Carabiniers, stood silent to one side,
near the foot of the grand stair case and —
Diablc ! To him came the menial whom I had
entrusted with the words ! Fagot's back was
turned. He did not hear. This clown of a
trencherman, this ass of the household, would
deliver my address of welcome to the wrong man !

" Sac ~re saucisson de Bologne ! " I hissed,
grinding my teeth together like the upper and
nether stones of a mill. "'T is now a game of
chance, with skill at a discount."

"D-deux c-cnk-cafes c-cognacs, Gar — M'sieur"
stammered — nay, almost whimpered — my don
key of a messenger.

"What sayest them, varlet?" the chevalier
fiercely inquired.

"D-d-d-dcux c-cafcs cug-cognacs, M'sieur?"

"Parbleu ! " cried the Chevalier. " A strange
refreshment, truly, to offer a hungry man; but
certainly, bring them, if it be the Duke's custom
and the way of the chateau."

" Oni, M'sieur," chirped the doltish lackey,
evidently much relieved, and starting rapidly for
the family sideboard. The Chevalier, however,
detained him.

" Garfon" he said, " Hither ! "

" Oi/i, out, M'sieur," chirped the blithering
fool once more. And then said the Chevalier:

"Make it three, gar(on."

V1 SHihes and Dukes. ^

"Sacre saucisson de Bologne ! " again I hissed,
in the darkness of the stair. "He has taken
their orders. Idiot that I was to expect aught
else of a waiter."

But 't was bootless, M'sieurs, to waste time
in regrets. The game for the instant had set
against me. Stay set, it should not. The next
run of cards should tell another tale.

I remained by the rail of the landing only
long enough to see Fagot, Isabelle and the Che
valier De Brie, attended by obsequious retainers,
start in the direction of the stair. The servants
bore lights, and the nook in which I stood would
soon become untenable. Swiftly and softly, for
I was not yet ready to disclose my presence, pre
ferring to wait instead till the time was fully ripe,
I tip-toed to the large apartment, to which, in
the guise of the Duke, I had at first repaired,
and entering silently, barred the door. Safe did
I feel in doing so, M'sieurs, for was not Fagot,
like myself, whoHy unfamiliar with the Chateau's
interior, and as unlikely as would I have been
to take chances with closed doors, when sus
picion is so readily roused ? I leaned forward,
with an ear to the panel, and listened intently.
Sapristi ! I had recked aright. The trio had
passed.

Whither, I cared not — at least for the
moment. A plan of action was shaping in my

75

^ dfeoneteur fc'en ^Brocbctte. ^

mind, but I myself — Ma Joi ! I was in no
hurry. The dinner hour, I felt, would best serve
my purpose, and in the meanwhile I determined,
I must communicate with Tsabelle. To arrange
a meeting was by no means difficult. I had but
to send for her, and she would come. Hence, I
pulled the silken bell cord, unbarred the door
and then resumed my seat by the mammoth fire
place.

"Your Grace rang?" queried the valet who
responded.

" Even so," I replied, on such good terms
with myself that I relaxed my dignity a little.
Then I resumed : " Seek you the lady who came
here at sundown — er — Simon, and say that the
Duke awaits her here in this room."

Then this man stared also. Ma foi ! But
they were a staring set in the Chateau Pommes
de Terre.

"Well, sirrah?" I queried, sharply. "What
now ? "

"An* it please Your Grace," stammered the
fellow, who was evidently a pampered family
retainer. "But did I not just see Your Grace,
with the lady Your Grace just named, in the blue
saloon adjoining the great hall?"

"Zounds, vassal !" I thundered. "But this
passeth patience ! Suppose thou didst? Get
thee to the lady with my message. Hold ! " —
76

an£> IDufces.

the fellow's chance warning had stood me in
good stead — " Deliver it not, save she be alone."

The will of a Duke in his own chateau is
akin to the law of the land. Obeyed it must be.
Isabelle obeyed, and the same family retainer
ushered her into my presence. Midway between
the door and the firelight, she stopped apruptly,
the scorn intended for Jules Fagot expressed in
every line of her marvelous face. So; she had
naught but contempt for him, duke or scullion,
as who could doubt who knew her?

" You sent for me ? " she asked icily, and
then with magnificent irony, "Your Grace !"

I arose from my seat and she started
slightly.

"Aye, Mademoiselle," was my measured
reply. " I sent for you, 't is true. Your cries of
the Chateau Demi Tasse are answered at last,
Mademoiselle ! "

" What mean you ? " she gasped, and then,
"Who are you? Man Dieu ! Not — "

" D'en Brochette," I whispered, tremulously.
"Aye, d'en Brochette, Mademoiselle, risen from
the well."

An instant more, and she was in my arms,
an embrace of body and soul. Then into her
eager ear, I poured the tale; the tale of Fagot
and the tread-mill ; of my visit to the department
store and the discovery of my resemblance to the

O'en 36rocbette.

Duke; of my coming to the Chateau and, last,
of my bold, rash plan, in which she must help.

"Banque on me, my brave Brochette !" she
cried, passionately. "Though no love have I
for the Duke des Pommes de Terre, to whom
unhappily I am betrothed, my heart bleeds when
I think of the wrong these ruffians have done
him. As for Jules Fagot — "

"As for Jules Fagot, Mademoiselle," said I.
" Look you ! There read his doom."

As I spoke, I pointed to the Portrait of a
Gentleman and in a few more words, for time
was precious now, I told her the story of the
misplaced mole. Then, speaking quickly, I
unfolded my plan.

"To-night," said I, "when you, Mademoi
selle, dine in the Great Hall of the Chateau with
Fagot and De Brie, take my appearance on the
threshold as a signal. When there you see me,
hesitate not, nor waver, but with steady, unerring
fingers, reach for Fagot's face and wrench the
mole from his chin. Do this, and fear not, for
men-at-arms will be in the corridor, ready to rush
in at my command and bear both Fagot and De
Brie to the lowermost cell of the donjon."

Again came Isabelle's passionate assur
ance, but trebly intensified: " Banque on me, my
brave Brochette. Banque on me !"

Ma foi ! Can you not for yourselves pic-

7*

& -

^ Dufcee anD Dufces. v

ture it, M'sieurs? Myself, with the Duke's men-
at-arms, silent in the gloom of the corridor;
Isabelle, Fagot and De Brie seated in the Great
Hall at the Duke's table, dining off the Duke's
plate and waited on by the Duke's menials; then,
just as the entree was served, M'sieurs, myself on
the threshold, rapier in hand, and Isabelle —

Ah, Messieurs ! The sight of Isabelle at
that magic moment shall dwell in my mental gaze
till the end of all. Rising calmly, as if to drain
a toast, she played her part to the letter.

"At last, gamin of the gutter !" she cried,
flicking the spurious mole from Fagot's detest
able chin and into his brimming wine cup. "At
last, gamin of the gutter, we are quits ! "

Fagot, taken aback with surprise and alarm,
cowered in his seat, but De Brie, scenting dan
ger, arose and drew his blade.

" Diablc /" he roared, with a soldier's oath.
" 'T is the finish ! " And in a flash of the eye
both he and Fagot were helpless in the grip of
the men-at-arms.

"To the keep with them !" I commanded,
speaking to the captain of the guard. " And,
mark you, bind them well lest they escape. To
the keep with them ! "

Scarce were the words uttered, M'sieurs,
when a furious clatter, a rush of many feet and a
jingle of spurs, arose from below. I glanced

81

V flfcongieur D'en JSrocbette. ^

fearfully toward the door. Isabella stood motion
less. Fagot and De Brie, despairing though
they were, raised their eyes anew. Then came
a growing volume of voices that caused my heart
to bound wildly.

" C'est le Due ! C'est le Due /" was the cry.

A final clatter, a final jingle of spurs, a final
shout, and there, standing in the doorway, even
as I had stood five minutes before, stood the real
Duke des Pommes de Terre; — escaped, released,
I know not which, M'sieurs, from the Cafe de la
Paix !

CHAPTER VII.
IN WHICH A GREAT HISTORICAL MYSTERY is SOLVED.

|H, but those were days of quick think
ing and often of quicker action.
Dynasties were moved by the sud
den impulses of most emergent
moments, and such a moment had
arrived for Huevos Pasada Par Agua, and foregad,
it was not his skin so much as his neck that stood
in peril. Imagine it, M'sieur. Here was I mas
querading as the real Duke des Pommes de Terre,
confronted by the man himself, who had been
mocked, put upon, deprived of his liberty, and
all for what ? Because, forsooth, he had declined
to enter into a conspiracy against the Crown itself !
I could already feel the noose tightened about
my neck, could hear the squeak of the gallows
steps as I mounted them for my last appearance
on any stage — and yet, my word on it as a
gentleman and a Pate de Foie Gras, more intol
erable to me was the thought of the loss of Isa-
belle, whom I had come to love passionately.
What were home, father and mother, what was
family, what were the innumerable fiancees I had
left behind me in Brittany, Normandy, Provence

•y flfeonsteur fc'en JSrocbettc. ^

and old Castile to this new love that had
awakened my heart? Nothing, I swore by the
sacred helmet of Vin Blanc himself.

"Brochette is dead," I murmured; "long
live the Duke des Pommes de Terre ! "

Then aloud, quick as a flash, fixing a steely
gray eye upon the real Duke, I asked sternly :

"Your errand, Sirrah?"

"What would you do?" gasped Isabelle,
sinking back in a fainting condition. " Be not
too rash, my Huevos !"

"Fear not, sweetheart," I whispered, hur
riedly. "Only be staunch and true to me."

"Till death!" she murmured, revived by
my unfaltering courage, and drawing herself up
proudly and glancing haughtily at the real Duke.

"My errand?" screamed the latter, taken
completely off his poise by my calmness. " My
errand, in my own Chateau ? Venire Saint Verdi
gris, but this is too much ! "

" 'T is well to ask too much," I retorted,
" since the too little that one gets may yet be
more than enough. Your own Chateau, M'sieur ? "
I added. "What lunacy is this?''

"Lunacy?" he shouted. "Aye, my own
Chateau. Is not this the Chateau Pommes de
Terre Au Gratin?"

" Yes — what then ? " I demanded, with a
contemptuous smile.

84

is Solved,

"What then?" roared Pommes de Terre.
" Now, by our Lady of Gorgonzola, this is again
too much ! "

"This is twice too much," I acquiesced,
seeing from his growing wrath that I held the
affair well in hand.

"But I — I am the Duke des Pommes de
Terre — am I not?" he cried, hoarsely gutteral
in his speech.

" Laugh — laugh as you value my life ! " I
whispered hurriedly in my Isabelle's ear. "This
is the crisis."

And even as I spoke the tinkling ripple of
her laughter filled the hall.

"Ha, ha!" I too burst forth. "A merry
jest, my Lords and Gentlemen. He the Duke
des Pommes de Terre, setting up his claim in the
face of me your overlord and Prince by birth !
By the Beard of my Ancestors, but thou art a
brave clown, Sirrah, thus to enter the very ban
quet hall of the Royal Chateau and set up so
strange a claim."

The effect was instantaneous. The Duke's
guard and the castle retainers had already shown
a disconcerting uncertainty and it required but a
feather's weight to turn the scale for or against
me, but the laughter of Isabelle and our bluff
retort made for a successful issue out of my
present embarrassments.

85

^ .Monsieur D'en asrocbette. -y

"Merry jest, sayst thou?" roared the Duke,
leaping toward me, his hand on the hilt of his
sword.

"Aye," said I, my brow furrowing into a
frown; "but, by my halidome, see that thou
carryest it not too far or else will I have thee
strung high in yonder orchard close, even as did
my venerated ancestor Louis the Eleventh of
sacred memory with those who did offend him."

These words were spoken with a deliberate
intent to offend my new enemy and at the same
time to impress the arrayed witnesses to an
astonishing scene. It had the desired effect,
though after a fashion I had not reckoned on,
for the Duke des Pommes de Terre, enraged
beyond control, now leaped upon the table and
waving his rapier high above him, gave voice to
the battle-cry of his clan.

" A moi, les Pommes Souffles — a moi / "

It was a brave act, and as the men-at-arms,
halberds drawn and buskins primed to the muzzle,
thronged in from the corridors without, my heart
sank, for their force was overwhelming, and there
sat I, caught like a rat in a corner, with no hope
of getting out of it save by the use of what wits
the patron saint of a d'en Brochette had given
him.

" We are lost ! " moaned Isabelle ; and, by
my faith, but for the despair in that dear voice I

Then look at yon pretender gentlemen!"

87

•^ /HSgeterg is SolveD. ^

believe we all would have been. 'T was that
alone that spurred me on to redoubled effort.

Raising my hand and summoning all the
imperiousness of a masterful nature to my aid I
commanded silence.

"Gentlemen," said I, as the din of many
voices subsided and some semblance of order
had been restored. " Gentlemen — I beg of you

— one moment ere we proceed to stern meas
ures. A question of identity has arisen between
that — er — that gentleman and myself. He
claims that he is I, when by a single glance you
can see that he is not I."

" C'esf vral — tres rrai/" murmured one or
two of the hotter heads who had come uncom
fortable close.

"£ie>i," I continued, "now let us reason
this out and if I am in the wrong let me bear
my punishment. The Duke des Pommes de
Terre, gentlemen, is a gentleman above all."

" He is ! He is ! " came shouts from all
parts of the room.

"Then look at yon pretender, as he stands
sword in hand upon the dining table, gentlemen

— upon the dining table, mark you, — his left foot
planted upon a golden fruit compote, his right
crushing beneath its weight the exquisite confec
tion which our chef had prepared for this lady
and myself," — and by a graceful wave of my

•^ /foonsfeur D'en JBrocbettc. -^

hand I called their attention to Isabelle, who
with the high color mounting to her cheeks
looked more beautiful th'an ever. " Is that, my
lords and gentlemen, the behavior of a Prince of
blood ? Is it the act of a gentleman to spring
upon the milk-white napery of a Ducal board
while yet his heels are clad in the boots in which
'he has travelled the muddy roads of France ? "

A hoarse murmur of disapproval fell upon
the true Duke's ears. Verily, the battle was
going my way.

" Look at his spurs ! " I continued with
vehemence. "The steel point of the right spur
in his mad flight to this strange position in
which you see him has torn the gold lace from
the cloak of my good friend the Marquis of
Hors D'Ouvre. Upon the left you will see the
socket of yonder candelabrum which he has
crushed out of all semblance to the lovely handi
work of Benvenuto Cellini which once graced
my table — and all this work of destruction, this
clamor and this din, this invitation to a brawl
unworthy of the tap-room — this gentleman in
dulged in in the presence of this fair lady — my
fiancee — your future Duchess."

The turmoil that ensued was indescribable.
The Duke, seeing the tide turning against him
and his cause hopeless, since by no peradventure
wa's there any gainsaying the justice of my scorn-

90

^ /Hasten? is Solved, -y

ful indictment of his breeding, albeit he was in
truth better bred than 1, jumped madly from the
table and was making his way to the door.

"A la lanterne ! " cried the now thoroughly
aroused retainers, surging about him threaten
ingly.

"Nay, gentlemen !" I cried, "no violence.
The man is mad, bring him hither."

" Noble Brochette ! " whispered Isabelle
with a soft "pressure of my hand which set my
whole being to tingling. "You have spared his
life."

" It shall not be death," I continued.
"'T ^Yas but a madman's prank."

"The mask !" they cried. "The iron mask
and the Bastille, that he may never again de
ceive us by his marvellous likeness to your
grace. The mask and the Bastille ! "

It was an inspiration, and I must confess
my heart leapt wildly at the thought of this easy
and permanent way out of my poverty and
predicament. The real Duke, his countenance
forever hid within the cold steel mask, could
ne'er again demand recognition, and once
clapped into the Bastille as an enemy to the
King, what hope was there for him ? And yet I
hesitated, for the poor Prince had never injured
me, was even now demanding only .his rights —
and again I looked on the face of fair Isabelle

•y jftfconeteur 5'cn SBrocbette. -^

and scruple fled. To abandon this only way
out of our dreadful troubles was to abandon
Isabelle to him, and myself, unwittingly forced
by the tide of circumstances into all my recent
actions, to the gallows, thereby placing the first
blot on the escutcheon of a proud and noble
family. Moreover 't was but an accident of birth
that made me a Pate de Foie Gras and him a
Pommes de Terre. Had my grandmother mar
ried her first betrothed instead of eloping with
my grandfather, should I not have been born to
the title? 'T was merely nature insisting upon
my destiny, and I yielded. Do you blame me,
M'sieurs?

"Aye, the mask !" I cried; "but the Bastille,
that is as my uncle the King shall say. The
mask, the mask."

The ugly instrument was brought at once
from the armory and without more ado was
placed upon the head of him who but yesterday
was the proudest Prince in all France, he pro
testing and fighting valiantly the while, but
against overwhelming odds.

"To the donjon with him to await the
King's pleasure !" I cried. "Meanwhile, saddle
my horse, Simon, and I will ride to Paris and
lay the question before his majesty at once."

With cheers for myself, maledictions for the
victim of my wit, and many a salutation of

9?

(5

respect to my future Duchess, the men-at-arms
and other retainers, little suspecting the real
truth, hustled the unhappy Prince below. Simon
sallied forth to- saddle a fresh steed for my jour
ney to Paris, and thinking myself at last alone
with Isabelle I turned to greet her.

Imagine my consternation, M'sieurs, to find
her gone, and standing between me and the
doorway to her apartment no less a person than
the Chevalier de Brie, Captain of the Camem-
bert Guards.

"At last, my Lord Duke !" he hissed
ironically. "At last we meet."

"The Duchess!" I cried. "And Fagot?"

His answer was a mocking laugh.

CHAPTER VIII.

IN WHICH THE QHEVALIER DE BRIE CONNECTS
WITH WHAT WAS COMING TO HIM.

ILUSHED with victory, insolent with
success, I surveyed the Chevalier
de Brie, who barred my way to
Isabelle, with immeasurable, un
fathomable contempt.
"Venire de skate /" I cried, laying my hand
upon a bell cord. "I have but to pull this,
jackal, and your bones will bleach through the
centuries at the bottom of the chateau's oubliette.
Stand aside, hyena, or I will summon the
guard."

"Feigling!" hissed the Captain of the
Camembert Carabiniers, his face a purplish
gray. "Feigling!"

The epithet stung me like a whiplash, all
the more because 't was couched in German,
a language, M'sieurs, I have detested ever since
(if you will pardon the anachronism) the dis
tressing affair of Alsace-Lorraine.

I stayed my hand for a few moments of
indecision, then flung the bell-cord scornfully
from me.

"No, jackal," quoth I, "I shall not sum-

•^ DC .tBrie Connects, ^f-

mon the guard. It would be said that I feared
you — you who are accounted the lustiest bravo
in all France. Instead" — my words were
tipped with steel — "I shall kill you with your
favorite weapon. You that have lived by the
sword shall perish by the sword. Follow me ! "

I preceded the bravo to the small dining-
room and rang for lights and food.

"My dear Chevalier," I said mockingly,
and with that icy politeness which I knew so
well how to assume, "when the new hour begins
I shall spit you like a well-done potato. Mean
time, pray accept my hospitality. We shall
fight much better on a filled stomach, I assure
you. If you remember, we did but come to the
entree when our dinner was interrupted by that
unhappy man on whom the Bastille gates will
soon forever close."

"Saint Paty du Clam .'" growled de Brie
cavernously, " thou art a greater villain than
Fagot. He did but detain the Duke in the
wine cellar of the Cafe de la Paix, whilst
you . . . . " He drained his wine goblet at
a gulp.

"A Brochette does not do things by halves,
M'sieur," said I, with a glittering smile, and
signed to the serving man to refill the goblets.
"When once a Brochette puts his hand to the
sword and his shoulder to the wheel he does not

97

•^ flfconsieur £>'en 3Brocbette. -y-

descend the ladder. What think you of that for
a metaphor? Ha!"

" Bah ! " cried de Brie, attacking a capon.

"When I have killed you and Fagot my
secret will be safe," I continued. " History will
pretend that the Man with the Iron Mask was
Count Matthioli, or General de Bulonde, or the
Duke of Vermondois, or that soldier of fortune
the gallant Marechiel, or I know not else. But
none shall penetrate his real identity until are
given to the world the incomparable memoirs of
Robert Gaston de Launay Alphonse, Count Pate
de Foie Gras and Marquis Presumptive of the
Estates of Pollio Grille in Spain."

" Bah ! " said de Brie, draining his glass.

" Eat, drink and be merry, my friend, for in
the next hour you die ! " I pointed to a Swiss
clock on the wall, ticking off the inexorable
minutes.

" Bah ! " said the Carabinier again, and rose
to his feet. "Come, let us to it. Saint Drey
fus! I shall prod thee as full of holes as a
colander."

"Be seated!" I thundered. De Brie drop
ped back in his chair, scowling darkly. "You
are but a churlish guest, ma foi! Restrain your
temper; you will fight the better for it. And try
one of these cigars; they are excellent. Not that
you will not smoke in the next world," I added,

98

•^ De .tBrie Connects. -^

maliciously. This in the days I write of was
accounted a very good jest.

With an ill grace De Brie lighted a perfecto
and flung himself back in his chair. "I am no
entertainer, your Grace," said he, with ironic
emphasis upon the title. " I am but a plain
fighting man, and, 'fore gad, I fret to be at the
game that I may slit thy soul."

"The soul, Chevalier, is indestructible, un-
slittable. Were there time," I glanced again at
the clock', "I should discourse to thee about the
soul. As 't is, thou 'rt in a fair way to know
more about it than I can teach thee. What,
ho! more lights!" I commanded. "And turn
on the music."

A company of minstrels entered, and rang
ing themselves in a semi-circle sang songs of the
sunny South ; and for the remainder of the hour
we smoked in silence, De Brie moody, myself
wholly engrossed in the music.

The Swiss clock struck the hour, and De
Brie sprang to his feet. I signed to the serving
men to remove the table and other furniture and
then to close the doors upon us.

"Will you measure the swords, M'sieur?"
said I.

De Brie drew a tape from his doublet and
stretched it along his blade. " Six feet seven
inches, " he announced.

99

^ Monsieur yen 36rocbette. ^

" Ma foi .'" I cried, "why not carry a spear?
My rapier is scant six feet. However, 't will serve."

I unfastened my pourpoint, loosened my
suspenders and removed my boots, De Brie
following suit.

" And now, M'sieur," I remarked, testing
the tip of my rapier, "is there any particular
place you would like to be run through ? "

" Bah ! " growled the Chevalier, and the
blades met hissingly.

The Captain of the Carabiniers attacked
like a sea-lion bereft of its young, but finding
me a wall of steel he grew more careful and
attentive. For my part I had never before
encountered so stubborn a blade, and I give
you my word, M'sieurs, we fought an hour by
the Swiss clock without either gaining the ad
vantage of the other.

"Saint Paty du Clam \" puffed De Brie,
leaning on his blade, " you fight like the devil,
M'sieur."

"A bottle of wine, Chevalier?" I suggested.
"We have all the time there is."

" No, no," replied De Brie, falling again
into position. "Let us finish. A la mort!"

" You have some reason for your haste ! "
I cried, pierced by a sudden suspicion. A malig
nant smile traversed De Erie's coarse features as
the supple blades joined.

' Six feet seven inches," he announced.
101

•y- DC JGric Connects. *y+

"What devil's work is afoot?" I wondered.
In my zeal politely to entertain and kill the bravo
I had forgotten my beauteous mistress Isabelle,
who might even now be victim of another hell
ish plot.

"Jackal!" I hissed. "Where is Fagot?"

I)e Erie's reply was a fierce lunge, which I
parried in my usual neat and nobby fashion.

"Venire de blanc mange!" I cried. "You
are in haste, M'sieur. Trcs bien, you shall be
satisfied."

I became a very whirlwind of attack, driv
ing the bravo before me like an autumn leaf
before an equinoctial gale. A la tierce, a la carte,
a la table d ' hote, my blade forked like lightning
through his guard, puncturing him now here,
now there, until he streamed like the colander he
vaunted he should make of me.

" They say, M'sieur," I mocked, as I en
larged a hole in his chest, "that lightning does
not strike twice in the same place ; but, voila !"
— I ran him through the third time, and he fell
crashingly on the tessellated floor.

I pulled the bellcord, but not a servitor
responded. I flung open the doors. A hoarse
murmur came distantly to my ears.

'• Sacre nom de plume .'" I exclaimed, awed
by a feeling of impending disaster.

I turned back for a final look at De Brie.

103

^ /Monsieur fc'en JBrocbette. ^

He had raised himself on his elbow, and was
regarding me with a last malignant smile. His
countenance was contorted with hatred.

Bang!

A terrific explosion rocked the chateau. The
walls of the rooms fell out, the roof fell in. By a
miracle I escaped being crushed by the rain of
stone and timber. A hollow groan told me that
De Brie had not been so fortunate. It was pitch
dark, so I could not locate him. But I shouted :

" De Brie, De Brie, what has happened?
Speak, De Brie!"

A rattling laugh answered me.

" The debris speaks for itself," the carabinier
jested in his last moments. "Fagot has blown up
the chateau ! Saint Dreyfus .' Half of it is on
my chest-"

"Courage!" I cried, and guided by his
groans I reached his side.

A lurid glare had replaced the Cimmerian
gloom. The ruins of the chateau were in flames.

The unfortunate De Brie was pinned down
by an enormous block of stone. This I tossed
aside, and hastily examined the bravo's condition.

Nothing could be done for him, and so I
informed him.

" Aferci, Sir Doctor, and search my pockets
for your fee," he sneered. " Ventre de petit pois !
I had this coming to me. Adieu, your Grace !"'

•^ S)c 38rie Connects. ^

With this last fling at my ducal pretensions the
bravo fell back — dead.

Now to save myself and the beauteous Tsa-
belle. It was high time. The flames were crack
ling all about me, and above the roar of them 1
fancied I heard the exultant laugh of the detest
able Fagot.

107

CHAPTER IX.

IN WHICH THERE ARE LIVE AND DEAD ONES.

[ow I ESCAPED death, M'sieurs,will ever

to 'me be a mystery. Mon Dieu!

The horror of that fearful instant !

From light to pitchy blackness;

from security to utter chaos; from
laughter, music and feasting to groans and horror
indescribable; from earth to eternity; and all,
M'sieurs, in one brief moment.

How much of the Chateau was still intact,
how much of it had fallen I knew not, and no
mind had I at the time to ascertain. My first
thought, my all absorbing thought, was of Isa-
belle: Where was she? Had she, like myself,
been spared by a miracle ; or was she, like the
Chevalier de Brie, a lifeless — ? Mon Dieu!
Even now, and years afterward, I shudder as I
think and tell of it.

I knew not then as I staggered to my feet
and stumbled dizzily for the first few steps that
the doings of the night were far from over. I
knew not then, what is more, that the wretched
Fagot's cowardly crime would set a new scene
in the drama of D'en Brochette; that ere the

^ Xive anD Deafc ©nes. -y-

night was through, I would l)e a witness of
developments impossible had the stones of
Chateau Pommes de Terre remained, as they
had been before, one atop the other. Lastly, J
recked not that for the time being even thoughts
of Isabelle would be driven from my mind; only
to return, however, a thousand fold on the strength
of that which I was to see and hear. Paniien !
M'sieurs, that was a night !

Shaken, bewildered, but still with a sense of
direction, 1 felt my way o'er a mass of building
material to the door of the room in which De
Brie and I, but minutes before, had supped and
fought. Through a shattered window, a ray of
moonlight shone, and creeping inch by inch
toward the center of the floor, it bathed the face
of the dead De Brie, fixed and grim, in a ghastly
hue. Some wreckage from the table had fallen
on the Chevalier's breast - plate, and peering
closer, an upturned dish of Glace de Peches a la
Creme I perceived it to be.

"By Saint Entremet!" I muttered, laugh
ing the while a low, unearthly laugh. "Thou
hast, indeed, thy desserts, Chevalier. Sucre nom
de diable ! What is that ? "

Straight before me, M'sieurs, mingling the
fitful light of a candle with the feeble illuming of
a waning moon, I saw a portly female of middle
age. Her dress, of a whitish material and of a

"V Monsieur yen JBrocbette. ^

strange bygone fashion, was much disordered.
Her hair, likewise. But her eyes — paibleu! —
they burned and flashed with a fire unquench
able. In her right hand she carried what I
judged to be a mahogany table-leg. In her left,
high above her head, evidently to guide her
through the mazes of the chateau on some
ghostly quest, she held a single candle.

Easily could I have kept from her sight had
the thought occurred to me, or the need required
it, but so struck was I with the unlocked for
spectacle — a spectre-like female, solitary and
silent, treading her way at midnight through a
ruined chateau — that for the moment I gave
no thought to self at all; and thus it was she
saw me when but inches of floor space were
between us.

For perchance four seconds, she gleamed,
glowed, glared at me with those demon eyes and
then —

'•At last !" she hissed.

"At last ! !" she cried.

"At last, Gaspard Henri Pierre, Duke des
Pommes de Terre," she was screaming now, and
her voice broke twice with vindictive passion.
"At last, after fourteen years, we face each other.
Who knows better than I the purpose of this
plot of plots? Who knows better than I whom
you designed to kill — aye, to kill — when with

•^ live anD 2Dea& ©nee. *y*

giant-powder you achieved this wreck of wrecks ?
Who knows, better than I, knave of knaves, that
your shameless schemes are frustrated? I am
free once more. The explosion, which basely
you planned and executed, hoping thereby for
the death of your lawful and wedded wife, did
but burst asunder the walls of her secret prison,
and she — she — it left unscathed. Varlet, this
is but the first ! "

With a swiftness and suddenness remark
able in one so aged, and so liberally endowed
with averdupois, this foaming, fuming female,
this hag of Hades, drew back the table-leg which
she carried and brought it down full force in line
with my unclad head. With an oath, I dodged,
but at that, the thing descended on my shoulder,
and half felled me.

" Ventre Moulin Rouge, woman ! " I cursed.
"What fiend's deed is this? Who are you —
speak ! "

Then ere she could answer, the dame's fren
zied words flashed o'er me and behold ! I knew.
"His lawful and wedded wife." Whose for
sooth ? Why, who else but the Duke des Pommes
de Terre, M'sieurs. He, and no other. And this
woman, the Duchess, if her words were true, had
been walled up a prisoner in her own domicile
for fourteen years ; the Duke, meanwhile, as a
bachelor or a widower — I knew not which he

"3

•<%?• /Hbonsicur ft'en .iCiocbcttc. 'V

called himself — having gaily gadded from one
end of France to the other.

"And thrice spit him ! " thought I, in a rage,
"betrothed at this moment, if he be still alive, to
the virtuous, the incomparable Isabelle ! "

Thanking the fates for their timely inter
ruption, I made up my mind instanter. This
masquerading should cease.

"Madame," I cried. "Your Grace — I
crave your pardon, but I am not your husband."

"Not my husband?" she queried, incredu
lously. "Not the Duke? Then who, i' the
devil's name, are ye ? "

She was fingering the table-leg again and
discreetly I drew back.

"'T is even so," she said at length, after
scanning me well in the candle light, "you are
not he. You are a younger man. But so like,
so like."

"See," added I. "Reck you that His
Grace, your beloved spouse, was. possessed
among other things of a mole? Behold!" —
and with a deft movement, I flicked the putty
from my chin.

" Enough ! " cried the Duchess, " I am quite
convinced. Deprive yourself of nothing more,
M'sieur, I beg." And then, in something of the
shrewish voice in which I first had heard her
speak — "But if you are not the Duke, in truth,
114

y Xive anD 2>eaD ©ties, y

then where is //<" ? Where is the prop of my
declining years? My soul's affinity? Answer!
But do not tell me he is dead."

She was screaming again and her screams
echoed and re-echoed through the dark and
silent chateau — silent save only for the drop,
from battlements to wine vaults, of an occa
sional girder.

"Your Grace," I began, bowing low, "My
lord, the Duke, to the best of my poor knowl
edge and belief, is alive and fairly well ; though,
it may be, a trifle shaken up."

" For that, the Saints be glorified ! " she
cried. "New zest and keen hath it added to the
chase. And I shall find him — where, M'sieur?"

" In the bottom-most cell of the Keep, your
Grace."

"Whither he went to escape destruction, I
doubt not, whilst some of his minions blew up
the Chateau. Blew up this chateau ! — Hah !
the wretch of wretches ! — which, mark me,
M'sieur, he has held for years in my name ! On
to the keep. And you, M'sieur, take you the
light and prithee lead the way."

She was raving again and twitching the
table-leg.

Over piles of debris, over beams and tim
ber, over furniture in hopeless chaos and floors
bestrewn with stone and mortar, we took our

•^ monsieur fc'en JSrocbette. ^

painful way to the gloom of the donjon. Not a
trace of a guard, alive or dead, was to be seen,
but there, almost under our feet, as we crept
cautiously along, I saw with a thrill — shall I
say a thrill of triumph, M'sieurs? — the body of
Jules Fagot.

"'Tis he!:> shrieked the Duchess, as she
came within the circle of light. " Killed ! Killed !
And I not by his side ! "

The Duchess was sobbing now.

"Ah, M'sieur," she added, grimly, I thought,
"in my present mood, five minutes by his side
would have been quite sufficient, both for him
and for me."

Should I tell this woman, pondered I,
that once again she was mistaken ? Should
Fagot be honored, even in death, by the atten
tions of a Duchess? I hesitated, M'sieurs; and
then, as if expressly to dispel my doubts, we
heard a cry.

"A moi, les Pommcs Souffles, a >noi.f" were
the muffled words. The voice came from the
depths of the keep, at the entrance to which we
stood, and I recognized it at once as the Duke's
own. Instantly I stole a glance at the Duchess.
She, too, had recognized.

" M'sieur," she said, and how strangely calm
her voice was now, "I wot not how many Dukes
this house hath harbored since, fourteen years

116

The mask, T beseech ye f '

•^ live anD BcaD ©ncs. *y

come Micklemas, 1 was brutally thrust in a secret
chamber and guarded, but that, M'sieur of the
putty mole, is the voice of the Duke I used to
know. The key is there, M'sieur. Unlock you
the door."

" Prithee, your Grace, one moment," mur
mured I, my hand on the massive boll. "Is 't
courteous, think you, to now disturb my lord, the
Duke? He may wish to spend in meditation
the few remaining hours of his bachelorhood.
His Grace — I no longer can conceal it — His
Grace is betrothed to one Isabelle, the reigning
Paris beauty, and the wedding, so 't is said, is
set for Tuesday at high noon."

What a scream was that, M'sieurs, which
sounded in my open ears ! Parbleau ! Beside it,
the others had been whispered nothings.

"Betrothed! Married! High Noon!"
shrieked the Duchess. "Sucre Beurrc Noir .'
Stand aside and let me to him ! "

Wide I swung the donjon door.

"Coming, Gaspard Henri Pierre!" shrilled
this Fury Emeritus, rushing headlong down the
passage toward a dim light at the farther end.
"Coming, Gaspard, after fourteen years. A moi,
les Pom me s Souffles, a moi !"

Fast as 1 could, I followed, but even so, my
speed was that of the snail compared with hers.
Mercury himself, i' faith, knew no such winged feet.

^ /ifconsteur D'en JSrccbettc. "V

When at length I reached the cell, in which
but scant two hours before — how like an age it
seemed — I, d'en Brochette, had ordered the
Duke cast, I witnessed a tableau that will ever
come before me, an' I choose to recall it.

Parblcu ! If great is the fury of a woman
scorned, what may not the anger be of one
locked up for fourteen years? I saw with a
start that the Duke's head was bare. The Iron
Mask — to this day, M'sieurs, I marvel at it —
lay cracked and broken on the damp stone floor.
To this day, moreover, I wot not whether it was
the concussion of Fagot's blast that loosened it,
or whether 't was the table-leg in the lusty grasp
of Her Grace.

"The Mask ! The Mask !" the Duke in his
chains was groaning. " Sucre Sam/ion Hol-
landaise ! The Mask, I beseech ye. Once more
within it encase my hapless head. To the
Bastille with me ! To the gallows ! To the
devil ! But away from Pommes de Terre ! "

There was a grating in the masonry of the
Duke's cell, a cell so deep that it had escaped
the devastation above. It communicated with
the outer air just atop the level of the water and
from it the outer wall and the principal gate of
the chateau were plainly to be seen in the flood
of moonlight. On this gate, then, at the very
moment the Duke brought his tirade to an end,

^ Hive anD 2>eaJ> ©tics. ^

there fell a steady succession of mighty blows,
delivered it must seem, with fists of mail, so all
compelling were they. Then there came stern
shouts — and Ma foi ! — Have your hearts ever
tenanted your throats, M'sieurs? Mine, forsooth,
arose straightway.

" Open ! " came the stern command. " Open,
at once, in the King's name ' "

"In the King's name !" I gasped blankly.

"The King?" said the Duchess, pleasantly.
"Prithee, who is King now? Details like that
were not vouchsafed me in the fourteen years
just past."

"The King?" muttered the Duke, in rapidly
growing delirium. "The King, say you? Aye,
bid him welcome. Open the gates. Down with
the draw-bridge, vassals. Minions, attend, and
receive your lord."

Then came the knocking and the shouting
anew.

"Ol'KN? Ol'KN IN THE KlNG's NAME?"

CHAPTER X.

IN WHICH THE KING TAKES A HAND.

|HE MOMENT was more than a trial. It
was torture. Not especially grate
ful ever to heaven for my relatives,
1 never had less stomach for an
uncle real or spurious than now as
I awaited the opening of the gates and the
entrance of his sovereign Majesty, Louis the
Fourteenth of the name. None the less there
was I committed to the emprises fate held in
store for me and my blood was up. No Huevos
Pasacla Par Agua had ever flinched in the hour
of trouble, nor bent beneath another's yoke, and
as the portals flung wide I drew myself up as
proudly as though the man who was to enter was
my inferior instead of my liege lord and master.
His Majesty was singularly agitated as he
entered. It was evident from his demeanor that
he suspected the bomb that had wrought such
havoc on the fair demesne of Pommes de Terre,
had been designed for himself, and from the
expression of his countenance it was clear to me
that upon whomsoever that day his displeasure
might fall, the victim of his wrath would account
the rack a bed of roses and the thumb-screw the

pressure of his loved one's hand beside the things
the morrow would bring into his experience.

••\\'hat then, my nephew!" he cried ad
dressing himself to me. "What means this unto
ward reception to your uncle and your King?"

"I pray your Majesty pardon this disorder
in my Chateau," I began. '• We were not aware
of the distinguished honor you were about to
confer upon our house and certain alterations in
the facade and interior of our humble dwel
ling — "

"Certain alterations?" roared his Majesty,
visibly relieved by my reply. "Certain? By
the beard of Navarre and all the white lilies of
1'Yance, cousin, they seem to me to be conducted
with much uncertainty."

"A careless workman, Sire," I returned,
"may wreck much havoc with the fairest scenes."

"I 'faith, 't is true," quoth Louis. "I have
e'en known La Valliere's tinted cheek to suffer
from too rough a handling of the rouge."

With such a jest upon his lips, the King
surveyed the scene, of ruin. His haughty eye
rested only for a moment upon the prostrate
Pommes de Terre, who with his glance fixed
upon the Duchess, was doing his utmost to crawl
away into obscurity, and then —

"Hold!" cried the Duchess. " Hold, Sire
— yon fair appearing wight is an imposter.

•$? jfl&onsieur J>'en JSrocbette. ^

There lying like a worm upon the floor and seek
ing exit through some chancing crevice is thy
nephew Gaspare! Henri Pierre, Look, Sire —
look upon him and then upon this man who
claims a kingly kinship with thee, his sovereign
lord."

" Peace, woman, peace," said the King.
"Thy servants, cousin, do not seem to me — "

"It shall not be," shrieked the Duchess in
the frenzy of her anger. " Look, Sire," she con
tinued, levelling her shaking finger at me, "if
not upon the worm at least upon the fox. Hath
he the mole, the hall-mark of the Duke des
Pommes de Terre?"

" Pray, Madame," said the King drawing
himself up with dignity, "the question 's not
who 's he who lies upon the floor, nor if the man
who seems to be my well-beloved nephew hath
the mole, but who art thou who thus pre
sume —

" Marie Louise Nanette Babette Anne
Katharine of Chambertin, the loyal wife and
Duchess of yon grovelling Duke des Pommes de
Terre," she cried. "Thy niece by marriage, but
thine aunt by birth — "

"You?" cried the King.

" Oui .' Moi — I am she," wept the woman.

The King was moved and with a troubled
frown upon his face glanced first at Gaspard

V £b£ ^HHI (Takes a 1>an&. ^

and then at me, hut my wits saved me. The
temporary diversion of his Majesty's attention
from myself, caught here heyond peradventure
without the mole, to Madame La Duchesse, had
given me time to gash my chin with a bit of
jagged rock that lay at my feet, splintered from
a gargoyle fallen from the roof.

"What say you to this lady's claims, my
cousin?" the King demanded with a frown.
"The mole in very truth should hear witness to
her contentions."

I turned my toin countenance full upon the
King and drew myself up to my full height.

"The lady, as a lady ever, should hath
spoken the truth about the mole, dear uncle," I
replied. "And it grieves me much that now
when first 1 find my title questioned, circum
stance hath so ordered things that it ma" not be
produced."

"May not be produced, man?" growled
the King, his brow furrowing with mistrust, and
advancing a step.

"It may not be, your Majesty," quoth I,
"for when the blast untimely pulled the chateau
down about mine ears, this wretched bit of gar
goyle served me thus."

And with this 1 pointed to my bleeding
chin.

"Crushed like a rat e'en though a simple

•y Monsieur D'en 38rocbette. ^

mole," I added. "Gone — the choicest heritage
of my ancestors, the heir-loom that I 've prized
and eke protected all these many years, sent bur
rowing whither I know not. All I know is 't is
gone."

" Venire d' Haricots rerts, but this is passing
strange," muttered the King, turning from me and
looking sternly at the Duchess. " My nephew's
explanation, Madame, hath much plausibility."

A wild laugh was the response.

"Ask yonder worm the truth," was her dis
dainful comment, and then, M'sieurs, such grovel
ling actions as the prostrate Uuke indulged in.
It seemed as if he were possessed to grate his
face away upon the rock and gravel 'neath his
jowl. Were he indeed the missing mole itself
personified, no more anxious burrowing into
Mother-earth could have been expected of him.
Fate trembled in the balance and there was 1
helpless to throw a bit of weight in either scale.

" Rise, groveller," ordered the King address
ing the Duke, "and let us see what truth lies in
this lady's accusation. Hast thon the mole?"

The Duke rose up and with hang-dog look
and shuffling feet approached his Majesty. A
crlance at his face showed me I was saved. The

O

reasons for his burrowings were now made clear.
He Ji ad flayed the mole away by attrition with
the earth.

128

^ Che fting Cafees a 1ban<x -y

"Who art thou, man?" demanded the
King. "Art thou in truth the Duke des Pommes
de Terre ? "

Again it seemed as if my life hung on his
lips, but as I saw him cringe before the glower
ing glances of the Duchess, my courage mounted
high. 'T was clear that death itself were prefer
able in his mind to live with such a one.

"I 'm not the Duke, Majesty," he replied.
"My name is Fagot — Jules Fagot — your Gra-
ciousness."

"Fagot ?"

"Aye, Majesty, Fagot — ralct dc cuisine,
Cafe de la Paix, Paris."

"What do you here?"

" I have come, Your Majesty, to wreak
vengeance upon yon tyrannous Gaspard Henri
Pierre, who worked me wretched wrong. 'T was
I blew up the Chateau. 'T is I, oh grand and
glorious monarch, who hath wrought this ruin,
and I await my punishment, no matter what
it be."

"He lies — ," the Duchess began, waving
her hands and preparing to rush upon the Duke.

"Peace, woman !" cried the King, restrain
ing her with a gesture. "His shrift will be a
short one if but half his tale is true without thy
further calumnies. Speak, nephew, know you
this Fagot ? "

"V /Monsieur O'cn JBiocbcttc. ^

"I know him well, Sire," I replied. "Too
well, in fact. The wrong I did him was to beat
him well for offences that he knows of — '

"Of what nature?" demanded the King.

" He brought me Moselle wines in place of
Chambertin, and at the breaking of my fast on
Monday last 't was he poured bromides in my
sauce in place of salt," I replied. " For this I
trounced him well. For that hath he destroyed
my home."

"The penalty is death !" cried the King,
shrinking from the malefactor in aversion.

"Nay, uncle, not so," I protested, not wish
ing to have the crime of murder on my soul.
" Let us be merciful. I doubt me not the man
hath suffered much from me and my kind in my
roisterous days at Paris, and the first offense was
but the vengefulness of an untutored mind. This
last more serious crime but shows him mentally
deformed. Give him to me, my King — a small
favor, Sire — and let me deal with him, accord
ing to my whim."

"Ah, Softheart !" cried the King. " 'T was
ever a weakness of thine, Gaspard, but it shall
be as you wish."

"A blank warrant of commitment to the
Bastille, and I shall be satisfied," was my reply.

Tapping me on the shoulder affectionately,
his Majesty, ordering his Chamberlain to fulfill

And in a moment more, 1 wan folded in lier arms,
'3'

^ Cbc fktiicj Safteg a t>an&. v

my wishes, passed on into what remained of the
gardens, leaving me alone with the Duchess and
the self-denying Duke.

"There is another mask below, Your Grace,"
suggested the Duke. "While that woman lives
I shall account the Bastille and the iron visor
comfort — the one to sequestrate my body from
her approach, the other lest perchance she have
an opportunity again to kiss me."

And so it was. In a jiffy's time the new
mask was adjusted upon the shoulders of the
Duke, the commitment signed by the royal hand
was filled in the name of Fagot, and under
strong guard Guspard Henri Pierre, Duke des
Pommes de Terre, was on his way to the dun
geons of the dread prison house of France, the
Bastille. There let us leave him to the con
sideration of history. He does not enter again
upon my narrative.

The Duke disposed of thus, I turned to join
the King, when, fury of furies, the worst of all
befell. The Duchess, resolved to make the best
of existing conditions, now stood between me
and the garden gate, her hag-like face lit up by
the fires of love, her bosom heaving with emo
tion.

" Forgive me, my Gaspard, for having
doubted," she cried, and in a moment I was
folded in her arms.

133

•^ Aonsieur O'en JBrocbette. -7*-

Vcntrc Saint Cafe Noir, but if this woman's
wrath were a thing to be feared, her love was to
be dreaded ten times more.

"Ye Gods !" I cried in a muffled voice, as
she amorously pressed my nose against her
breast-pin.

CHAPTER XI.
LA BELDAM SANS MERCI AND LA BELLE ISABELLE.

JNHAND ME, woman ! " I cried, and
sought to break the amorous clutch
in which the Duchess held me.
But as the ivy clings to the oak,
or the devil-fish to its prey, the
infatuated woman hung on. I must temporize.
"Enough, Marie," I said. "I do surrender
— I am thine for all eternity."

With a cry of joy she pressed my unhappy
nose still more erotically against her breast-pin.
Ventre Verdi Gris ! It is sore to this day.

"And you will never donjon your little
Marie again?" she whimpered.

" Never, on my honor as a Pommes de
Terre au Gratin ! "

Reluctantly she unclasped her arms. I
rubbed my proboscis ruefully.

" Poor 'ittle nosie ! " she cooed, touching it
tenderly. "Diddum naughty pin scratch him?"
"It diddum, Madame!" I roared. "By
Cyrano, it diddum ! "

The Duchess took my arm. " Let us leave
this place, my love," she said. "It is frightfully
out of repair."

•«j» Monsieur D'cn SSrocbettc. ^

I glanced around at the ruins of the cha
teau — the chaotic heap of toppled masonry and
twisted girders. As a place of residence it was
indeed passe, not to say de trop.

Not a soul was in sight. In the distance I
heard the echoes of a bugle; the King was
returning to Versailles. It was dark as Erebus,
save for the flickering light from the flames of
the wrecked chateau.

"We must put up at the hotel, sweet
Marie," quoth I. "And appearance hath it that
we shall walk perforce, for of horses and re
tainers I see nothing. Methinks the varlets have
perished in the wreck. Remain here, my Sappho,
whilst I repair to the village — 't is but half a
league — for a conveyance for thy precious self."

"Nay, Gaspard; thou 'It not leave me
again," replied the Duchess, determined not to
lose sight of her prey. " I shall accompany thee
to the hotel on foot. I have need of exercise,
my love, having taken on flesh during the past
fourteen years. I acknowledge, my cruel Gas
pard, thou hast fed me well."

"Come, then, my Helen of Troy," said I,
with an inward groan. And we set forth toward
Manchet, the Duchess with feet of thistledown
and I with leaden heel.

En route I searched my wits for means to
disencumber myself of La Beldam Sans Merci,
136

V JBetoam ano JBette. -^

but could think of nothing short of murder; and
this, with my customary delicacy, I shrank from.
The hotel lights surprised me with not an idea
in my pate — usually a tropic forest of ideas.

" My love, we will sup," I remarked, having
registered.

"Mon Diei/, Gaspard, I was at the dessert
when the Chateau blew up."

"Tush, sweetheart ! The walk has given
me an appetite," I insisted gently. And escort
ing her to the dining-room, I gave orders for a
sumptuous repast.

Whilst this was preparing I engaged a suite
of rooms for an indefinite period; and as the
shops were still open, it being Saturday night, I
despatched servants for a fresh wardrobe, bidding
them purchase the most costly goods to be ob
tained. It was hard upon midnight when a
cringing menial advised me that the banquet was
prepared.

Despite her protest, the Duchess discovered
an excellent appetite, and as we supped we
chatted of many things — a new chateau to be
built in the Spring, our winter house in town, a
cruise in the Mediterranean. The Duchess cast
on me the most languishing of glances, whilst I
madly revolved in my mind a thousand futile
avenues of escape from her Circean toils.

The expectant valet de place, with an ob-

137

"V /Monsieur D'en JBrocbette. -^

sequious bow, laid beside my plate the bill for
the repast. I glanced at the figures and started
violently.

Two hundred and fifty-seven francs, thirty
centimes !

"Ventre de Gargantua ! " I murmured to
myself. The precise amount, to a centime,
M'sieurs, of the bill which my lost Isabelle had
vised for me at the Cafe D'Oeuf, in Paris, not
forty-eight hours before ! Again, at this touch
of a vanished hand, a wave of passion swept
over me.

Into those forty-eight hours had been crowded
more incidents than the ordinary man expe
riences in a lifetime, even in these days of swash
and buckler. Save for the hours I lay uncon
scious in the well at Croquante, I had not slept,
nor was there prospect of my sleeping for days
to come. I vowed to myself that I should not
close my eyes until I had recovered Isabelle, if
years were required to the search.

Now, as on that fateful morning when first
I beheld my divinity, I was without a sou.
Mechanically I thrust my hand in my pocket,
though no purse was there, and drew forth a let
ter. I stared blankly at it, then suddenly I re
called that it was the letter to the Duke des
Pommes de Terre which I had taken from the
ill-fated courier on the road from Paris. The

^ JSelCmm an& JBelle. -y-

seal was still unbroken. Like myself, the letter
had had remarkable adventures.

Never, M'sieurs, was there stranger caprice
of circumstances. I had become, for better or
worse, the actual Duke des Pommes de Terre.
The lett-er, therefore, was for my eyes. Thus was
I in conspiracy against the King, as this fatal
paper was unquestionably a link in the chain of
plotting.

"From a woman, Gaspard?" queried the
Duchess, kindling with jealousy.

"Nay, my love; 't is but a tailor's bill," I
answered lightly, opening it.

Diable . It was in truth a tailor's dunning.
It read :

"To making one business suit, with extra
breastplate and surcingle, 125 francs. To
cleaning and riveting business suit, 10 francs.
Please remit by messenger."

The paper fluttered from my hand. I sat
dumfoundered.

"A message for the Duke des Pommes de
Terre," announced the valet de place, laying a
perfumed missive before me. My heart leaped :
the perfume was Isabelle's. The Duchess snatched
wildly at the letter, but I thrust her back in her
chair and broke the seal of the odorous message.

'39

•^ /Ibonsieur D'en ^Brocbette. ^

One glance and my wild Brochette blood flamed
for an instant action :

"Mv BRAVE BROCHETTE — True heroine
of romance that I -am, I am once more up
against it. Come at once. Love will find the
way.

"ISABELLE. "

I leaped to my feet, upsetting my chair with
a crash; and flinging the unpaid dinner bill at
the Duchess, who fell fainting across the table,
in three bounds I had gained the street and was
running like a deer in the direction of Paris.

Love showed the way. Venus was evening
star, and swung, a beckoning beacon, before me.

I had run a league or more when suddenly
two dark shapes sprang up as from the earth and
barred the highway. I reached for my sword,
but — sapnsti ! — I was defenceless. Powerful
arms seized me, a bandage was placed over my
eyes, and I was hurried — whither I could make
no shift at guessing.

Presently I heard a gate click; my feet
touched gravel; I mounted a stair; the bandage
was plucked from my eyes ; — Man Dieu ! I be
held the beautiful Isabelle, her eyes shining like
stars.

" My brave Brochette ! " she cried, and sank
into my arms.

" My pearl of fabulous price ! " I murmured.

^ JBelfcam an£> JBelle. -^

"It was very good of you to come, my
brave Brochette."

" Now that I am here I shall never leave
you!" I swore, and took tribute of the tremu
lous lips that neighbored mine.

"Oh, Robert," she murmured — "your name
is Robert, is it not?"

"Robert Gaston de Launay Alphonse.
Wear upon thy lips, my love, whichever name
best pleases thee."

"I am undecided, my preserver, 'twixt
Alphonse and Gaston. Both are sweet."

"'T is all one to me, sweetheart," said I.
" Help yourself."

"Then Alphonse be it," she replied. "Oh,
Alphonse, I feared you could not come to me;
that fate, so inconsiderate of lovers, had placed
you hors dn combat once again."

"Tell me, my adored," I said, glancing
about, " what is this place in which I find you ? "

" 'T is a villa, and deserted. Ask me not
how I came here; 't would require an entire
chapter, and time and space press — like thee,"
she said, pantingly. For a Brochette, M'sieurs,
is a very bear at the game of hugging. "Thank
heaven you are in time, my brave Alphonse.
One fight more, my cavalier, and then our
troubles will be over, and we shall live happily
ever afterwards."

^ /IfconBieur yen 38rocbette. ^

" Ha ! " I cried, sniffing the battle afar off.
"You expect an attack?"

"At any instant. Hark!" She raised a
warning hand. A sound of breaking glass fell
crunchingly upon the silence. "They are in the
cucumber beds. In another minute they will
force the door ! "

"A sword ! A sword ! My dukedom for
a sword ! " I roared.

Isabelle ran lightly to a clothespress and
drew forth a naked blade of i8-karat Toledo.
I snatched it eagerly, and to test its temper ran
it through a haircloth sofa.

"Shall we not barricade the door?" asked
Isabelle, pushing the piano into position.

"Nay, my love," I replied. "We shall
make it a staircase affair. With your sweet
voice to encourage me, I could hold a stair
against more men than fronted Horatius in the
brave days of old."

A crash below stairs told me that the door
had been forced. I sprang out upon the land
ing, Isabelle following with a piano lamp. A
pack of armed ruffians were swarming up the
stair.

" Twenty — count them — twenty ! " cried
Isabelle, her voice high with excitement. "A
Brochette ! A Brochette ! "

I snatched a kiss from her scarlet lips, and

'44

A pack of armed ruffians were swarming up the stair.
145

•y .IBelOam anD JSelle. y

bidding her hold the lamp high I turned to the
work in hand.

" Twenty — count them — twenty ! " cried
Isabelle again. "Have at them, valiant Bro-
chette."

And then, to the hireling cut-throats swarm
ing on the stair:

"Come on, canaille, come on ! I'd have ye
meet a gentleman — a gentleman of France ! "

A chorus of maledictions swelled from the
throats of the baying pack at the foot of the
stair.

CHAPTER XII.
IN WHICH THERE ARE DOINGS ON THE STAIR.

|T WAS warm toil, M'sieurs. A second
after Isabella had issued her sweep
ing challenge, the foremost ruffians,
with drawn swords, came bounding
at me. Poor fools ! They knew
not who I was.

" By the mass, shrimps," I grimly jested,
" Naught have I against ye save my blade, but
that were more than enough, I trow, for such
as ye."

'T was the work of an instant to extract my
steel from the one and plunge it, quivering, into
the other. Then, with their two bodies as a
dead-line, I faced the eighteen scamps remaining.
Sapristi ! But the lust of the fight was strong
upon me !

" Swine of the trough ! " I roared in a
terrible voice, while cowed momentarily by the
loss of two of their number, the band hesitated,
"Swine of the trough ! Though the knife of the
butcher were fitting steel for all of ye, sticking
pigs in an abattoir was ne'er a fad of d'en
Brochette's. I like not their squeal, to be frank
with ye" — here I touched with buskin toe the
148

^ Doings on tbc Stair. ^

body of him nearest me — "And by your leave,
sweet sirs, I'll finish this killing with dispatch."

" Now, by the Lord Harry, and by gad's
daggers, blades and scabbards, no man shall call
Miles Giles a pig and live to boast of it in a six-
bescellar."

These, M'sieurs, were the ranting words
that followed my taunting pleasantry. They
came, what is more, from the leader of the pack ;
a burly knave of an Englishman, whose speech,
as you will observe, was studded with strange
oaths, and expletives as outlandish as himself.

" No, by my halidom," he bellowed in a
passion — a passion not made less violent by a
contemptuous smile from me — "no man shall
call Miles Giles a pig and not himself be badly
stuck. Oddspluts, mates ! To the floor with
this smirking snail eater !"

"To the floor with him !" echoed the other
ten and seven ; meaning me, M'sieurs, the
modest teller of this tale.

With that they made a concerted onslaught,
beside which their opening rush was naught but
a minuet. In the center came Miles Giles of
Merrie England, while flanking him on all sides
were the swashbuckling blades and leerjng
tongues of his seventeen snarling companions.

For the instant, M'sieurs, I confess that I
quaked ; for after all I am only human. The

•^ dfeonsicur D'en JSvocbetie. -y?

emotions which sway men, sway me. The fears
that men feel, I at times feel also, though may
hap in lesser degree. In short, for the moment,
I quaked. Then reflecting that but two more
slain would shorten the odds against me to 16 to
i — something which readily is overcome, as ye
know, M'sieurs — I made a lunge at the nearest
scamp and — Mon Dieu ! But for the restrain
ing hand of Isabelle, I should have slid sans
dignity to the very bottom of the stair case,
where even now my assailants were floundering
and cursing in a conglomerate heap. And the
stairs, M'sieurs — the stairs, from a flight of
polished oak steps, had changed in a second to
a steep, smooth incline, with neither break nor
visible joint from the head of it to the foot.

" Sacre saucisson de Bohgne ! " breathlessly
I gasped. "What dark age witchery is this?"

Small thought had I, M'sieurs, that the
riddle would be answered, yet answered it was,
and by Isabelle at my side.

" No dark age witchery is this, dear heart,"
she said, with superb coolness — coolness simply
marvelous considering the uproar below — "'Tis
rather the perfection of modern stair building;
a device which shortens considerably the stay of
one's boorish guests and gives them in parting
la peche chute, as they of Normandy quaintly
say."

150

The stairs . . . had changed . . . to a steep, smooth incline.

^ Doings on tbe Stair. ^

I looked at the girl in sheerest wonder.

"•And thou, bravest of the fair and fairest of
the brave," said I, " Is this thy work?"

I pointed with dripping rapier to the stairs
that were, and the baffled gang below.

" Ay," she laughed, with a saucy toss of her
head. " And whose else, M'sieur, indeed ? For
deft effects about the house is not a woman's
hand ever responsible ? 'T was I who pressed
the secret spring, most certainly."

" Isabelle ! Incomparable Isabelle!" I
began tremulously, mindful for the moment of
naught but her.

" No time is this for honeyed words," she
interrupted firmly. "Look you, my Alphonse.
He who calls himself Miles Giles of England is
climbing up the balusters."

Taking from her the piano-lamp, and hold
ing it at arm's length, I flashed its light down
ward.

" Meet amusement, good sooth, for a grown
man," I sneered at the ascending ruffian. " I
'faith, in France, sweet sir, climbing the balusters
is deemed an infant's pastime. But choose your
transit as ye will — Parbleu ! The end is the
same in any event, and swift to come."

" Oddslidikins, caitiff ! " hissed he whom I
addressed, "but for the scurvy trick just played
by yon staircase, there would have been ere now

153

•«$i» flfeonsieur yen JBrocbette. ^

on that broad landing the deadest swaggerer in
all France."

So grimly savage were his tones, to say
nothing of the 'hoarse, growing growl of the men-
behind him, that Isabelle with a shudder clasped
my hand in hers and clung more closely to me.

" Fear not, sweet one," said I, reassuringly.
" Yon Creeping Charlie is naught but a loutish
braggart, like all of his detestable race. I have
but to stand at the head of this balustrade and
prick them one by one as they come within my
sword's length. Ma foif" — here purposely I
raised my voice — " It will be like stringing
beads."

" Bah ! Gadsobs ! " was all the response
that came from one Miles Giles of England.

And then, M'sieurs, I noted what I should
have seen before ; that Miles Giles, half way up
the balusters, was but part of a stratagem; a
decoy for the time being ; a mere means to
catch and concentrate my whole attention.
When I solved the trick — Parbleu ! It was too
late to do aught but leap back ; back out of the
way of two falling columns of armed masculinity.
The followers of Miles Giles, bandits and cut
throats, were skilled acrobats and tumblers as
well. Taking advantage of the dark, for all was
pitch dark in the lower hall, two squads of them
had mounted on each other's shoulders and

154

•^ Doincie on tbc Stair. ^

fallen up, M'sieurs, the stairs which they could
not climb; the topmost villans landing at once
but scant three feet in front of me.

" Odds whips and wheels, have at him,
mates !" roared Giles from the balusters. "Tilts
or tumbling, 't is all one to us, by Gys ! Odds-
devilkins ! Huddup !"

For the moment, I was dismayed by the
suddenness of the move, but for the moment
only. In the next, Brochette was again
Brochette.

" Come closer with the light, sweetheart,"
to Isabelle I cried, "Come closer or turn it up,
else I can not see to carve."

"Mercy! Mercy, M'sieur!" shrieked the
next victim of my blade, in agonized terror.

"Mercy!" qoth I. "What mercy shall a
tumbler have who would take unawares a fall
out of d'en Brochette ? None, sirrah ! "

And breaking his feeble guard, I drove my
flashing steel, not through that man alone, but
through him directly behind.

I weary you, I fear, M'sieurs, with these
bare commonplaces, these dull details of a life
lived every day. Protest not politely to the
contrary ; 't is to Frenchmen I am talking. Let
this then be sufficient : In scarce ten minutes, by
Isabelle's Swiss hour glass, I despatched upon
the journey whence no traveler returneth all but

'55

"V Monsieur fc'en ffirocbette. -^

two of my loutish enemies. Upon one of the
latter I was busily engaged, even preoccupied,
pressing him back, back to the carven wains-
cotting, finally spitting him, when —

" S'death !" hissed a voice at my elbow.
" Odds blushes and blooms ! Yield thee ! "

Parbleu ! For the first time since the
fracas began, I was at a disadvantage, but by
other eyes than mine was my peril discerned.
Isabelle had seen, and seeing, acted.

" Die, English muffin ! " she cried, and
using the piano lamp as a knight's lance of old,
she caught Miles Giles beneath his bearded chin
and neatly severed his jugular.

" S'blood ! " he roared in fury, rolling limply
down the erstwhile stairs, and then at the foot
we heard him murmur weakly :

" Pishtush, m'lord. What mummery is
this!"

Miles Giles of Merrie England, M'sieurs,
was taking his last wander in his mind.

Now, when we were safe at last and there
was need no longer for parry and thrust, reaction
seized me and I felt so weak that I staggered.
Moreover, the lamp went out when it struck
Miles Giles, and the ensuing darkness did not
aid me to recover.

" It was going out anyway, sweetheart,"
said Isabelle, through the blackness. " In sooth,
156

•^ IDoings on tbe Stair. ^

't was beginning to sputter e'en when I did
strike."

"My preserver!" I answered trembling,
reaching 'her at last. " Though as yet I can not
see thy face, I swear before thee on bended knee
that that lamp henceforth shall be more precious
to Brochette than ever Aladdin's was to him.
Where we go, it shall go. Where we dwell, it
shall dwell. And if by fortune's favor, I shall
ever amass vast wealth in gold and estates, no
chateau shall be too imposing, no apartment too
rich in furnishings, to deprive yon lamp — where-
ever it is at this black moment — of the place of
honor."

" But first, my sweet," whispered Isabelle in
reply, "I must make for it a new shade. The
present one, I fear me, is a trifle passe. And
now," she added brightly, " let me lead you out
of this — this chamber of horrors."

" Of joys, sweetheart, since you are here," I
gently corrected.

She answered with a pressure of the hand,
and led on in silence.

" Tell me, dear one," I interposed, " who
those ruffians were who so boorishly disturbed us
this night ! "

" I know not, Alphonse," the girl replied.

" But what came they for ! "

" That, also, I know not, Alphonse."

159

•^ flfconsieur D'en JBrocbette. "V

" But why, sweetheart," I persisted, " should
they ever have come at all ?"

Again Isabelle made answer :

" Alphonse, once more must I say that I
know not, unless — "

" Yes, my pearl, unless — "

"Unless 't is because," she ventured, "we
live in historical times."

Feeling our way down a back and obscure
stairway — one unequipped with the patent
folding device — we reached at last the villa
garden and beheld the gray of dawn.

/Y y;/,/.sy//;A".V .YO TK.

[T is with regret that we have to announce a failure
upon the part of the three collaborating authors of
tins romance, historical though it be, to agree upon the
tenor of the concluding chapter of their story. We are
compelled, ivith apologies to the reader, to print all three
versions of the conclusion as they have been supplied to us.
The situation is a novel one and we arc not aware that
there is any precedent by which we may be governed in
the matter, and the solution of the difficult v that we have
chosen seems to be the only, as well as the shortest way,
out of a disagreeable complication.

CHAPTER XIII.

I\ WHICH M'SIKI'R IJ'EN 15ROCHETTK IjRINGS TO A

CLOSE THE FIRST VOLUME OK His IN-COMPARABLE
MEMOIRS.

7>'r Jyert Lesion Taylor.

|OR THK third time within the brief
space of forty-eight hours I took an
account of stock, and found myself
no better off, in a worldly way,
than at the beginning of my last
series of adventures. Still did I possess my
health, a sword, and my family name ; but to
the debit side of the ledger was added a beauti
ful woman, soon to be my wife ; an extravagant
beauty, too, if one might judge by her gowns
and jewels.

Before the world I was, it is true, Duke
des Pommes de Terre au Gratin, master of
broad acres and coffers of gold ; but with the
relic of the real Duke still in existence, and pur
suing me with implacable passion, I had no
mind for further masquerade.

In the days of which I write, M'sieurs,
there was but one employment for a centimeless
gentleman — his sword. Now, in all France

^ Monsieur D'en JBrocbette. -y

was there no more honest and industrious
swordsman than myself, and whether I worked
by the hour or the piece, I put my heart into my
employ and gave good value for every franc of
remuneration. But at the ruling wage, even for
skilled workmen, I could not hope to maintain in
luxury a wife so highly born as Isabelle, and the
highest class of work, the unmasking of con
spiracies against the King, usually rewarded with
a title and a great sum of money, was distributed
by chance, and as often as not fell to the least
deserving. The morrow, the week, might bring
me such employ. But the day, the instant,
pressed. I was without a sou, and Isabelle's
suggestion of breakfast threw me into a profound
melancholy.

As we left the villa, deserted save for the
stiffening corpses on the stair, I hailed a passing
fiacre and bade the charioteer drive to the
nearest cafe, promising him an extra thrust from
my rapier if he made haste. In the pre
occupation induced by the state of my finances
and my solicitude for Isabelle, who was sleeping
soundly on my shoulder, I did not remark the
direction in which we were proceeding. Pre
sently the fiacre stopped, and looking out I
beheld the cafe in which I had left the Duchess.
An ambulance was backed up at the curb and a
great crowd was gathered.
164

^ fins Incomparable dfcemotrs. y-

"What is wrong, Alphonse?" murmured
Isabelle, sleepily. "An ambuscade?"

" Nay, sweetheart ; an ambulance. Ho,
varlet," to the driver, "inquire the cause of this
blockade."

The fellow departed on his errand and re
turned with the news that a lady had dropped
dead in the cafe, some hours before, of heart
disease.

"Her name, scoundrel!" I cried, a great
hope leaping within me. "Did'st learn her
name ? "

"Otii, ^rsicnr" he replied. "The un
fortunate lady was the Duchess des Pommes de
Terre au (Ira tin."

My tale is done. 'T is the story of two
days in a lifetime of romance, much of it his
torical — the first volume of my incomparable
memoirs.

I take leave of you now as the Duke des
Pommes de Terre au Gratin, husband of the new
and beautiful Duchess Isabelle, Chatelaine of
Castle Brochette — a name that piques the curi
osity of all France, which marvels whence and
why I chose it.

How in one fleeting year I was widowed,
and careless of life sought balm for my great -
167

^r /fconsteur fc'en JBrocbette. *<£•

grief in the wars the King waged against all
Europe ; how I fought under Conde and turned
the sword aimed at his heart in the thick of the
conflict ; how in my King's fourth war I under
took a perilous mission in his behalf that led me
to Madrid, and how I became the husband of
the glorious Inez of Arragon, — these things,
M'sieurs, will be found set down in succeeding
volumes of memoirs, sold only by subscription.
Permit me to recommend the set in half-levant,
edition de luxe, each copy of which is numbered.
M'sieurs, I drink your good health, and for
the time — adieu !

[THE END.]

i6S

CHAPTER XIII.

IN WHICH APPEAR Two PORTRAITS, PLUS A FAMILY
HEIRLOOM.

By Arthur II. Fohvell.

[PAIR OF centuries, plus several years,
glide swiftly away.

"And is this his picture, Grand
pa; really and truly!" asked a
grave-faced boy of a bent old man.
"Yes, Brochette," the old man responded.
"This is his picture, really and truly."

They were standing, these two, before the
portrait of a Gentleman ; a quaint portrait, and,
moreover, the portrait of an exceptionally quaint
person, judged by modern standards. A plumed
hat, wide of brim, sat jauntily upon a luxuriance
of fine hair, while below the haughty, striking
face and its crisp, challenging moustachios was a
ruff like a fluted grindstone, which rested
proudly, even arrogantly, upon the Gentleman's
broad shoulders.

Opposite this portrait there hung on the
wall another; the portrait of a Lady. The
Lady, also, wore a plumed hat, wide of brim,
769

•^ Monsieur D'en $rocbette. ^

and her hair, though differently arranged, was
quite as abundant as the Gentleman's. Besides,
and again like her framed companion, she was
seen emerging from a ruff. The patrician
character, both of the Lady and the Gentleman,
no one who saw the portraits — newly come fresh
from a skilled restorer — could question for a
an instant.

"Yes, Brochette," the old man repeated,
" this is his portrait, and that is hers. They are
your honored ancestors; yours and mine; the
layers of our family's foundation in America."

The boy regarded them with wondering
respect.

"I've heard it," he said, "a great many
times, but I can not remember, somehow, more
than half of it now. Let me see. This was
Mr. and Mrs. Huevospasadaparagua, wasn't it,
Grandpa ? "

The old man smiled — as who could help?

" Not Mr. and Mrs., Brochette," said he,
gently chiding. "Say rather, Huevos Pasada
par Agua, Count of Pate de Fois Gras and
Marquis presumptive of the estates of Pollio
Grill in Spain, and Isabelle, his wife."

The old man, small need to add, had a
Family Tree of no mean girth — a veritable lord,
in fact, of the Forest Genealogical.

"And when they came to America," the
170

Ibefrloom.

little fellow continued, "did they come in the
first cabin, Grandpa, with a stateroom way up
high on the promenade deck, like the one we
had last summer?"

"Yes, yes," said the other, absently. "Or
rather, no. The promenade deck was not for
those times, my boy. Our family's founder and
his charming bride had a stateroom, I dare say,
near the stern-post, with the rudder chains creak
ing and clanking near their heads. But I do
not know; I do not know, Brochette. Your
Gran'dad. sir, is getting old and forgetful."

" But tell me. When did Mr. — I mean
our family's founder — first meet Mrs. — I should
say, that is — er — our family's foundress?"

"The beauteous Isabelle, no doubt you
mean, my boy. Ah !" said his grandfather.
"That was what they called her: The beauteous
Isabelle! She was married, I believe, somewhat
hastily to the Count. There are blanks in our
family history which no one now can fill, and
one of them occurs unfortunately at the very
period of their nuptials. The elaborate wedding
feast and ceremony seem in this case, to have
been strangely omitted.

"The story is told of the Count and Isa
belle that they traveled in great haste to Paris
from somewhere or other and thence to Calais,
pursued for some reason, it is said, by an in-

H? flfconsteur fc'en 3Brocbette. -^

furiated dame. Who this woman was and why
she pursued them, there is no record left to show.
I know only of the pursuit ; and remember
seeing in my boyhood an old journal of the
Count's, written in French, wherein the strange
woman's rage was described with graphic humor.
She stood, it seems, on the dock at Calais and
shook her fist wildly at the departing ship,
screaming and ranting the while in impotent
fury."

"How funny!" cried the boy. "I should
like to have been there, grandpa; would n't
you?"

"On the ship, perhaps, my boy, but not on
the dock," was the old man's prudent comment.

" Oh, grandpa," then exclaimed the child,
a new thought striking him suddenly, "haven't
you got in your big cabinet anything to remem
ber them by? Something they left, you know."

"You have hit upon my life puzzle,
Brochette," said he, gravely. "Come."

Leading the way to the lighted library, he
unlocked a drawer and from it withdrew a small,
carved box. Within it lay a tiny package,
silken in its wrappings. The latter, outspread,
disclosed to view a dry speck of something —
something round and hard like a bit of baked clay.

"And what is it, Grandpa?" asked the boy,
wonderingly.

& ffamilB Ibeirloom.

The old man shook his head.

"It was his," said he, pointing to the
Portrait of a Gentleman; "but what it is I can
not tell. This goes with it — it is his hand
writing."

The boy looked at the now faded parch
ment and read hesitatingly :

Found by Isabella in the pocket of my
best hose, five days out of Calais, aboard the
good ship, Mayonnaise. "T would seem as
though I ne'er could lose it.

They laid the thing on the library table and
regarded it together.

"Why, I tell you what it looks like, Grand
pa," the boy said, laughingly, "It looks just like
a mole that came off-"

The old man smiled at this flash of childish
fancy.

[THE END.]

CHAPTER XIII.

IN WHICH OUR HERO SEES His FINISH

By John Kendrick Bangs.

JLAS, that I, Huevos Pasada Par Agua,
should have to recall the dire
misery of that which was to follow.
Has ever a gallant heart been called
upon to narrate such woeful hap
penings as now befell? I trow not; and yet, from
the beginning of these Memoirs to this, the end,
I have swerved not from the path of truth.
Destiny, human destiny, is a thing that man may
not evade, and here in my last chapter must be
set down the terrible story of defeat at the
moment of triumph — yet what a happy death —
but I anticipate.

It was into a cold gray dawn that Isabelle
and I, our enemies, the hireling swashbucklers of
an unidentified foe, laid low in death, now es
caped. The garden was deserted, save by an
occasional tree-toad who sent up his melancholy
song to greet the dawning day, and no impedi
ment to a happy ending to the troublous court
ship of my love seemed to intervene — but who
can tell what the future hath in store ! Stand-

•^ ©ur 1bero Sees 1fote jfinieb. ^

ing on the brink of happiness, the next moment
my beloved companion and I were hurled into
eternity.

With the fleet foot of the hind we sped
down the path, to the gate issuing upon the
highway to Paris and the nuptial hour, when
suddenly with a crackling sound and a sudden
crash the ground gave way beneath our feet, and
ere we knew what had come about, the fair lady
and I had fallen into a deep pit half filled with
water whose depth went down and down and
down into the abysmal bowels of the earth.

"Help, my Huevos!" came the startled
cry from Isabelle as she sank into the turgid
waters. "I am sink —

The appeal was never finished, a mere
gurgle blotting out forever that beloved voice.

Frenzied with my impotence to help her I
too went under, and, foregad, it seemed as
though I ne'er should rise again. But my
moment was not yet come, for with a few strokes
of my arms, and kicks with my heels, I came
again to the scum-covered surface of the pool,
where I called right lustily for help. A mocking
laugh was the sole answer, and I was thrust
under by a garden rake in the hands of one
whom through the growing light of day I per
ceived to be none other than the deserted true
Duchess of Pommes de Terre.

175

"V dfeoneteur j>*en JBrocbette. -^

"By the sacred tooth of Navarre," I
gurgled as I went down the second time, "if
Isabelle and I unwed must rest our bones forever
at the bottom of this slimy pool, no future age
shall make scandal of the fact, for we shall not
go to death unchaperoned."

With which, reaching upward, I seized the
rake's end and with one dexterous jerk pulled the
unwieldly Duchess herself into the pit, shrieking
and imploring Heaven to save her to the end.

Again, because of this movement, I rose to
the surface, perceiving the Duchess floundering
down past me, as sputtering I once more
breathed, my head well above the waters. But,
alas, no more breath was left me to call again for
help, and for the third and last time I sank —
down, down, down into the depths never to rise
again, but to rest through all eternity by the side
of my heart's best treasure, my Isabelle.

A dreadful end in truth; but what could be
happier than that cool grot, far removed from the
turmoil of life, beside the form of her I loved so
true, there to lie until that last dread day when
all are summoned before the judgment seat ? A
kindly fate let my now lifeless corpse down to
the spot where that of Isabelle lay still and
strangely beautiful, and then — the end. I was
no more ! The Duchess caught some twenty
feet under upon a shelving rock, so that no dis-

176

/ pulled the unwieldy Duchess herself into the pit.

177

^ ©ur 1bero Sees 1t»i0 jfinisb. V

cordant intrusion on our death-embrace was ever
to be feared.

Gentle reader, 't was two hundred years
before our bleaching bones were found by
dredgers clearing away the pool. By them the
romance of our days was well respected, for in
stead of parting us, as well they might have
done, our bones were tenderly placed elsewhere,
and together; and that is why you, in passing
through the Convent yard of Mere la Chaise,
will see to-day one small mound marked by a
simple stone upon which are inscribed the words :

LES AMANTS INCONNUS
FOUND DROWNED.

It is the grave, dear reader, of the lovely
Isabelle and myself, Robert Gaston de Launay
Alphonse, Marquis of Pate de Foie Gras and
Heir Presumptive to the Estate of Huevos
Pasada par Agua in old Castile.

[THE END.]

179

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